theofficeofnilsjohansson

| JDS No. | JDS-BLG-001 | Rev | A | Date | 2026-03-25 | |—|—|—|—|—|—|

I’ve been an engineer for over a decade. I’ve worked in engine rooms, on gas turbine sites, in automation workshops, and in testing labs. Through all of it, one thing has been consistent: the best knowledge is the kind someone took the time to write down.

Not textbook knowledge — the practical kind. The note scribbled on a whiteboard about why a particular valve sticks in cold weather. The email from a colleague explaining how they traced an intermittent fault. Those are the things that actually help you when you’re standing in front of a machine at 2 AM trying to figure out what went wrong.

The gap between theory and practice

Engineering education gives you the fundamentals. It teaches you thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, materials science. What it doesn’t teach you is what to do when the fuel purifier keeps tripping and the chief engineer is asking you for answers.

That gap between theory and practice is where real engineering happens. And it’s mostly undocumented.

What I want to do here

This blog is my attempt to bridge that gap, at least for the problems I encounter. I plan to write about:

• Practical engineering problems — real situations, how I diagnosed them, what worked and what didn’t
• 3D modeling for engineers — I’m learning Blender, Shapr3D, and build123d, and I want to document that journey from an engineer’s perspective, not an artist’s
• Software as an engineering tool — scripts, automation, and tools that solve real problems
• Lessons from the field — the kind of hard-won knowledge that only comes from hands-on experience

An engineer’s notebook

Think of this as a public version of the notebook I’ve always kept. Rough, honest, and useful. If even one post saves another engineer an hour of troubleshooting, it’s worth writing.

I’m a marine engineer by training, but engineering is engineering. The systematic thinking you develop in an engine room applies to a turbine hall, a testing lab, or a CAD model. That’s the thread running through everything here.

Welcome to the office.