Five Flute
Menu

Engineering Resources. Our love letter to engineering and hardware product development.

The best in engineering and hardware product development on the web - straight to your inbox.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

William Burke

Five Flute Founder & CEO

How to use Waterjet Cutting for Rapid Prototype Development

Best practices for rapid machine design prototyping

William Burke

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

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

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

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

William Burke

Five Flute Founder & CEO

Engineering Drawing Review Best Practices

A primer for working design and manufacturing engineers

William Burke

William Burke

Five Flute Founder & CEO

Brainstorming for Engineers

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

William Burke

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

William Burke

Five Flute Founder & CEO

8 Tips to Keep Hardware Product Development Teams Efficient

Practical approaches to speeding up engineering development

William Burke

William Burke

Five Flute Founder & CEO

Design for Assembly (DFA) Best Practices

An overview of DFA principles for mechanical engineers

William Burke

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

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

William Burke

William Burke

Five Flute Founder & CEO

Help! I can’t find the resource I need!

Got an engineering challenge you need help solving? Tell us about it below and we’ll get back to you!