machine shop

These days it's real hard to get someone to let you play with their machine tools. Since you have an .edu email, you might check around campus and see if the engineering or physics department has a machine shop where they could help you.

Where exactly/about do you live?

Russ Wizinsky

I do live in Pittsburgh, and CMU has several machine shops left. Access to them is another story though. I'm an industrial design student and don't have access to the MechE shops. I have been looking to get a job as a shop hand / lab rat / anything related to the shops just to get access and can't find anything. Also, I havn't found anyone who was willing to do the work. I've one more option left and I'm going to go check it out tomorrow night but it would be nice to find a place where I could just get some time in on the machines. It's really frustrating that you have to own a 10,000 dollar piece of equipment just to know how to use it and have access to it once a month. I would drop it off and have someone do it but a lot of the fun is doing the work, making the toy not just playing with it.

-Steve

--On Tuesday, April 06, 2004 1:12 AM +0000 Kent Frazier wrote:

I guess I am asking if there are any clubs, groups, or shops that I could pay dues or shop time fees to use equipment and be a part of things, or if what's out there is businesses and retirees that I need to have an "in" with.

You don't need all that equipment for countersinks or counterboring. Make a boring bar with a pilot and drive it with a drill motor.

Ron Thompson Was On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast, Now On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

--Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

You can get a 3-in-1 for 1/10 to 1/3 that amount and do just about anything that you can do with the $10,000 one. I have a Smithy and haven't been stumped yet. It may take a little longer but it gets done. I can refer you to samples of my projects if you want.

Ted

I would be very surprised if you can find such in these litiginous days. The insurance costs would be prohibitive. If somebody lost a finger doing something stupid, it would, of course, be the clubs fault. :-( These days people are getting huge sums because THEY drank too much at your party.

Ted

Hmmm??? What exactly "industrial" are you setting out to design???

Ever heard the story about the engineer that wanted a 1/2" hole bored in a 3/8" shaft?? Almost as bad as the electronic engineers that I work with, most of which have never used an O'scope or a multimeter.

Oh, I get it, you'll be designing the factory breakrooms.

Sorry, by the time you graduate the only jobs in this field with be in China, India, and Mexico...............

Tom

Thank you guys for your help. I agree with the insurance problems. Our court and law system need an overhaul by a "common sense" committee. It is too often that people are treated unfairly in our courts. However, there are still some people with a smile on their face and a good heart in the world. One of the shop hands on campus was reluctant to give out any information on how to get the project done without a project number (basically a confirmation that someone with power says its ok to do the work) but he did tell me who the foreman was and let me know how to get in touch. I found him and told him about my project. He's going to help me finish up my project :) I guess the lesson learned is that if you stick with something long enough, you'll meet the kind of person and stumble upon the opportunities you're looking for.

-Steve

--On Tuesday, April 06, 2004 5:04 PM +0000 Ted Edwards wrote:

Industrial designers typically work with more intimate things such as the caseing on your angle iron or the desk and chair you sit at to write grandma some letters. I've been getting a backpack company started for about a year now. And it was my design for a brief case and a book bag that got me into the design school. It is however unfortunate that I won't be able to take advantage of the opportunity to live in and experience another way of life. I haven't settled down yet and would be up for living in China, India, or Mexico for a couple of years. I too wish that most the manufacturing jobs didn't move out of the U.S. Instead of complaining about it, perhaps you should fork over the extra cash that it takes to buy American engineered, designed, and manufactured producuts.

Oh yea, and next time, you should consider the entire context instead of stripping one sentence of my thread to focus on - it'll make you appear more intelligent and be more helpful to the rest of us.

-Steve

--On Tuesday, April 06, 2004 4:14 PM -0500 Tom wrote:

Yeah, like electronic techs are always competent. I had one ask me what the little colored bands on resistors meant.

-Jim, who was a tech for 15 years before becoming an engineer...

FWIW, having worked with industrial design (via my CAD clients) as well as manufacturing, I think you're in one of the most interesting and exciting fields anywhere. One of my neighbors is an industrial designer, now working as an architectural designer, and we spend hours talking about and looking over his collections of Raymond Loewy, Charles Eames, Geddes, Dreyfus, and Wright photos and drawings.

I know, more interesting things have happened since those guys were alive. But my neighbor and I are both pretty gray.

Ed Huntress

I may have told this story before: I was an Army guy stationed in rented space at a Naval Reserve Center. I was there four years. I had almost no metalworking tools at home, a buzz box and a drillpress. Two weeks before I was to transfer out the Navy Chief opened a door across the hall which I had never seen open. I looked inside, it was a complete machine shop, totally tooled. The Chief said:" Oh yeah, you can use this stuff anytime you want, we never use it. Paul

I have often wondered why the High Schools and Universities couldn't be brought under the Workman's Compensation system in each state. Lack of political will? Workman's comp premiums are pro-rated based upon man-hours. The man-hours students actually are exposed to the tools would be minimal compared to a working person. 3-4 hours a week versus 40-50. 36 weeks versus 52. Roughly 6% of the exposure. I don't know, but I'd bet that the rates for accidents have been lower in school shops, per hour of exposure, than for the related industry. Paul

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 10:02:27 -0700, Jim Stewart brought forth from the murky depths:

So...when did you find out that Violet gave willingly?

-Larry, who was a tech for 3 years before giving it up to go hungry owning his own business.

------------------------------------------------- - Boldly going - * Wondrous Website Design - nowhere. - *

At the tender age of 18, Redstone Arsenal, US Army Missile and Munitions School.

Well ... the purchasing people and stock people are even worse.

Once, a purchasing person "saved" the lab a lot of money. Instead of buying 100 1K resistors, he bought a single 100K resistor. Isn't buying in bulk *always* a way to save? :-)

And we had one stock person (official title "Planner") on graveyard shift looking all over for a RC20GF007J (1/2 watt) resistor. (We even showed him a RC42GF007J (2W) to show that they were made.)

He knew enough to match the color codes and size to the part number, but he didn't know just what they *meant*. For those who know the color codes, but not the part designations used above, the three digit group represents the first three bands -- Black, Black, Violet. IIRC, the 'J' was gold band (5%). The "RC" is resistor, carbon composition, and the 20 or 42 were references to the 1/2W or 2W sizes. I forget what the designation was for a 1W resistor.

Of course, I *hand-painted* the color codes on that resistor.

I'll leave determining the actual resistance as an exercise for the readers.

Enjoy, DoN.