old post worth reading and assorted ramblings

Hi,

- Take your basic machining course, then find yourself a jobbing shop machine shop that does a bit of everything. Stay away from the well paid, but usually very boring production shops or like I did, find a tool & die shop to apprentice in---then, you won't be bored!

- There used to be, maybe still is, a school in Kingston, NY where they taught/teach CNC programming thru a basic machine shop tech school approach. But my experience in my travels was, CNC in my days was machine specific, not generic, and the guys programming the jobs for production are Master degreed educated guys where that's all they do and this school was just interested in making a buck but not really interested in getting you a real job.

- In 1985 I worked with a very good tool maker, his wage was $17 an hour at the time. His daughter was a computer programmer, university trained making $35 an hour! Machine shop is an interesting job for onesy-twosy type jobs, but not much money in it for the common blue collar type unless YOU own your own shop.

- In the tool room, I learned on the job, no paper certificate was ever achieved as it was not a bona-fide appreticeship program. And compared to what I was making setting up and running down production runs on automatic lathes, I took quite a pay cut to learn the tool & die trade. Typical 1st 2 years work was 1,000 hours on a lathe, then 1,000 hours on a miller, then drill press, then surface grinder, bench work, etc. That way you get a lot of trial and error under your belt and you get used to getting yelled at! The best way to learn is making mistakes and getting yelled at, that way you never forget the experience. One French guy I worked with, a tool maker, he apprenticed in the 1930's as a general machinist, his teachers used martial punishment---a whack on the back of the hand. He said, "Believe me, you learn NOT to make mistakes VERY quickly!" (LOL!)

- Alan =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D old post worth reading and assorted ramblings Group: rec.crafts.metalworking Date: Wed, Sep 17, 2003, 10:18pm (EDT+1) From: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (chem) I was reading some archived RCM messges on Google and I came across this:

(I'll paste the original url down further in case that tinyurl one expires or something weird). Anyway, it's a long post by Kirk Gordon titled "The Most Important Profession". It's from early 2000, and I'm sure some (maybe even most?) of you have read it already, but for those of you that haven't it's worth reading. School started a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely love it even though we haven't started working in the shop yet. The course is called =A0=A0=A0=A0"Precision Machinist", but isn't machining pretty precise to begin with? =A0 The "precision" seems like it should go without saying... I read about turners' cubes in TMBR #3 (I think it was #3, but it could have been #1) the other night and I'd like to make one... Someday. :) =A0=A0=A0=A0We're allowed to pick a few personal projects to make throughout the year if we want to, and so far I've picked a couple out of Home Shop Machinist magazine. One is swivel blocks, to hold something with a tapered side in a vise. (It may even be handy to have two sets of these). That was in HSM 2003 March - April. The other is a miniature church (HSM 2002 Sep-Oct). I'm thinking it would make a nice gift for my mom. It's all done on the mill (which I get to start out on in the next couple of weeks). The other people in my class don't seem to be very excited about it, except for one other guy, but I think he's excited about everything. I deburred for a few years before this, so I've seen the mills and lathes and everything but haven't been able to do much on them. I got to do a bit, but... It's just so rockin that I'm going to be doing it full time! The only thing that worries me is that when I get out I'll end up being a machine operator. Pushing buttons all day. I want to be able to do manual work. Set things up, use my hands and my mind, not just stick the work in the vise, push the button, take the work out, put the work in the vise, push the button... Argh. That's the monotony I was trying to escape when I left deburring. I mean, there's paying your dues and doing things like drilling a gazillion holes and milling a gazillion slots, but I don't want that to be my career. Anyway, here's that other link I promised up there.

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I'd love to apprentice in a tool and die shop. We'll see what happens when I get out of school. I guess you can't be too picky, the way jobs are today. But then again, I'd rather be enjoying my job and making less rather than hating every minute of work and making better wages. CNC kinda scares me too. The only way I've seen it used is in a production shop where they spend days, weeks, years making the same parts, and there's only a couple of people who write the programs and set up the jobs, so everyone else basically pushes buttons.

And yeah, I'd *love* to own my own machine shop, in theory. But I don't know if I'd be able to handle the stress of it all. There's no way I'd be able to have people working for me who just didn't care much about their work, you know? And I know for lots of people it's hard to care about your work when it's all for someone else. I think maybe I'd like to have a little shop eventually, even if it's just a home shop for my own use. But having to look after a bunch of other people? No thanks, if I wanted to be a babysitter I'd go into early childhood education instead of machining. Maybe that's just how I see it because most of the people I know into machining are younger and haven't really settled into it, if they even ever will. :)

Ouch, I'm glad they're not allowed to beat on you for making mistakes anymore. :P Usually being made to feel -->this big Hi,

Wow. Interesting post. Lots of good points, lots to consider. Pangs of guilt abound over here.. I can see that the employers arn't really the only ones under valuing the skill. I know for a fact that it's never been discussed at my shop exactly how important our work is. I'll have to bring it up over lunch one of these days..

Anyhow, that point aside, one thing bothered me about the essay.. and was the hint of the permeating disdain that is held by pro's for the newcomers in the field. I work in a field - gearcutting - that has no official training and no ticket can be earned. The only way to get into the business is to start at the bottom and deburr and delivery drive your way up. This is made ever so difficult by the top dogs who hold all the knowledge guarding it and dispensing it only when it suits them. At the same time, until you work your way up to a certain level of skill, you're treated like garbage and considered to be worthless. From what I hear, maybe one out of ten guys manages to deal with the crap and find the will to not resign and learn the trade. Considering the looming lack of skilled employees on the horizon due to the boomers retiring, this is a bad, bad scene. General opinion is that due to the lack of successful newcomers, in ten years the North American gear cutting industry is virtually going to be ground to a halt due to the lack of skilled labour.

My point is.. it's a fantastic idea for machinists to value themselves and what they do. It's a bad idea to jealously guard the secrets of the trade because you think the new guys on the floor are jokers or unworthy. In the end, it will only drive away more guys from an already labour poor industry, and the resulting lack of talent when the boomers retire will only make packing up and heading over seas an even more appealing option for business owners.

So.. if you love machining.. train a newbie.. or your secrets may just die with you!

----- Original Message ----- From: "chem" Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 9:18 PM Subject: old post worth reading and assorted ramblings

Always!!!! In my experience (and I'm 68), the folk who **REALLY** know their stuff don't jelously gaurd the "secrets". They are only too happy to pass on their knowledge. They will continue to learn all their lives and aren't really afraid of the new guys taking away their jobs. It's the incompetents and semi-competent ones who jealously gaurd. At least that's been my experience.

Ted

But to be fair, some of the "new guys" (and a few of the older ones too I guess) are "jokers or unworthy". I don't know much and I may have no business at all saying this, but unless we show we're willing to put out the effort and that we actually want to learn new things why should these old guys spend their time teaching us anything? If we're more concerned with talking to the guy on the lathe next to us and telling him how loaded we got on the weekend than paying attention to what we're doing and/or we try to scrape by with the minimum of work possible and we're the first ones out the door every day we're not setting ourselves up as someone who's really interested in the trade.

chem

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