how do you “reverse engineer” something?
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There’s no one answer because it could be applied to many different things that correlate to many different fabrication disciplines.
Generally speaking though you take something and you inspect it to try to determine how it works, and more importantly, how it was made. Depending on the object in question one may be more important than the other. Typically in order to reverse engineer something you need to have access to it, and the process may ultimately destroy it.
How do you do that? It depends really. You can inspect it, take it apart, use specialised equipment to analyse it, cut it in half or however many pieces you require, run experiments with it, etc. It really depends on what exactly you’re reverse engineering. Are you after the function? Are you after the fabrication technique? Are you after material qualities? All these change how easy or hard it may be, and in many cases, there may not be a direct way to actually reverse engineer something.
For example Coca Cola is supposed to have a secret recipe. Sure anyone can just get a bottle and do whatever they want with it. They can read off the list of ingredients, they can analyse it in every which way they want and determine its components and their percentages. Ultimately that still leaves a big question mark as to how exactly it is made. Are all the ingredients just thrown into a vat and stirred? Shaken? What is the order and how much does it matter? Is anything boiled, roasted, cooked or otherwise processed in order to get the final result? I guess one with the complete ingredient list would still have to test many different recipes to ultimately come down to the true one through trial and error, and that’s if it doesn’t require specialised proprietary equipment not just anyone can get their hands on. So ultimately that leaves the recipe a secret, though someone, probably competitors, may have secretly figured it out. Of course even with that knowledge in that specific case simply copying it would not be a good look for a company.
I have a desk I bought many years ago. The shop that sold it to me is closed but I want one just like it. So I visually inspect it. There’s 4 wooden panels, the desk top, two side panels that serve as the legs and a narrow one connecting all three for rigidity. The panels are made from melamine faced particle boards and they’re connected with 2 dowel/cam connectors each. Knowing all this I can perfectly replicate this desk despite not being the original creator.
I have a motorcycle and I want to understand how the engine works. I can take it apart bit by bit and see all the inner workings, which gear turns which component, where there’s seals or gaskets and what type and why, where the coolant channels are and where the oil channels are, where they flow from, where they’re going, what the engine displacement is and what the compression ratio is, how much the valves travel and how the cams are timed. I can get a full picture of all its parts and how it works. This doesn’t however give me any indication of how specifically the parts have been cast, forged, or machined, but if I had the kind of equipment that enables me to fabricate something like an engine, reverse engineering another engine saves a ton of work for me from having to come up with it myself.
Overall reverse engineering is a very useful skill. It’s used in archaeology, technology, engineering, to great effect and results, but it’s also used in espionage, corporate or state, and in theft of intellectual property, so it’s not always morally sound.
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