Engineering Resources. Our love letter to engineering and hardware product development.
Engineering Articles
Deep dives into engineering topics for product development professionals. FEA, DFM, CNC machining and more!
Guides & Playbooks
Playbooks to help you and your team design, build, test, and deliver world class hardware products
Tools, Charts, & Calculators
Free engineering calculators, web tools, and reference charts to help you tackle common product development challenges
Blog
Where we write about best practices and how to use Five Flute for electro-mechanical engineering and hardware product development.
Engineering Articles. Design, build, test... repeat.

Fasteners and Bolted Joint Design
An engineering deep dive into fasteners and joint design problems for mechanical engineers.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Practical Finite Element Analysis
Understanding the fundamental math, guidance for building trustworthy models, and interpreting the results.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Practical Design for Manufacturability and Assembly
A deep dive into product development, manufacturing, and assembly cost reduction focusing on first principles and design best practices.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

First Principles of Manufacturing: CNC Milling Tolerances
A deep dive into machining tolerances and error sources in part design for CNC milling.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Introduction to Common Milling Tools used in Job Shop Machine Shops
A brief review of milling tools commonly used in modern job shops.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Introduction to Root Sum Squared (RSS) Tolerance Analysis
A how to guide to statistical tolerance analysis for mechanical engineering applications.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Advanced RSS Tolerance Analysis
Estimating manufacturing failures and scrap rates using RSS tolerance analysis and z-tables

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Drawings 101 - The Basics of Creating High Quality Engineering Drawings
A primer on the creation and review of engineering drawings for individual part manufacturing.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Five Flute Part Drawing Review Checklist
A comprehensive checklist for part drawings so you can streamline your drawing review process, catch preventable mistakes, and move faster with confidence.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Mastering GD&T - Building Datum Reference Frames
A foundational guide to selecting datum features that accurately communicate design intent with GD&T.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Mastering Drawings - Top Tips for Creating Better Sheet Metal Part Drawings
A how to guide for engineers and drafters designing sheet metal parts.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

GD&T Basics - A Comprehensive Introduction to Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing
A beginners guide to GD&T and it's application on engineering drawings

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

How to use Waterjet Cutting for Rapid Prototype Development
Best practices for rapid machine design prototyping

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Best Practices for Mechanical Engineering Issue Tracking
A primer for mechanical engineers developing complex and deeply integrated electro-mechanical products.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

How to Plan and Prepare for a Mechanical Engineering Design Review
A playbook for organizing efficient and valuable design reviews

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

How to Run Effective Mechanical Engineering Design Reviews
A playbook for running and moderating efficient and valuable design reviews

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Bearings and Bushings - Essential Components for Mechanical Engineers
An overview of bearings and bushings focused on construction and practical applications.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Engineering Drawing Review Best Practices
A primer for working design and manufacturing engineers

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Brainstorming for Engineers
A how to guide on brainstorming best practices for electro-mechanical product development.

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

CNC Machining in the Digital Manufacturing Era
An in-depth analysis of U.S. based digital fabrication providers - Protolabs, Xometry, FastRadius, Fictiv, and Fathom

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

8 Tips to Keep Hardware Product Development Teams Efficient
Practical approaches to speeding up engineering development

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Design for Assembly (DFA) Best Practices
An overview of DFA principles for mechanical engineers

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

Sheet metal DFM - design guidelines for formed and punched parts
A first principles look at sheet metal design for manufacturability for experienced engineers

William Burke
Five Flute Founder & CEO

CNC Machining DFM - Design Guidelines for Milled Parts
A first principles look at CNC part design for manufacturability for experienced engineers
