Apprentice exercises.

Carlos SA

Carlos SA

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Reading through this forum I see that there are a few professional machinists that have mentioned training as apprentices as part of their education.

I was wondering if those machinists that happen to read this could please share some apprentice exercises. I have not had the opportunity to be trained as an apprentice but I would like to develop my skills. I was thinking I would post my results of the practice exercises in this thread and hopefully others will join in too.

Regards,
Carlos.
 
I'm in school now and our teacher is the man. So much so that in his 3 months he has taken the new students to the same level and advanced some past the students from the last teacher with a year in school.

How much do you really want to learn? Just a few projects? Or do you want some real deal book and math work? Running the machines is the easy part. Learning the book work is what draws a line between the 3 types of machine shop workers. 1 being button pushers or guys who can do anything if you set it up for them and hold their hands. 2) being the guys who are good enough to make things on their own but are just sloppy, good enough type guys. 3) being the smallest group, they will be true machinist. It aint good enough to be in the tolerance zone but rather hit the number stated.

If you want to be in the 3 group you got alot of book work to learn. 2 of the most important will be right triangles and gd&t. You need to now all the trig functions for triangles and you need to know at least the most basic aspects of gd&t

Let us know what your looking for and I'll try my best to help you find it. Be it things to make or actual books to learn
 
chuckorlando said:
I'm in school now and our teacher is the man. So much so that in his 3 months he has taken the new students to the same level and advanced some past the students from the last teacher with a year in school.

How much do you really want to learn? Just a few projects? Or do you want some real deal book and math work? Running the machines is the easy part. Learning the book work is what draws a line between the 3 types of machine shop workers. 1 being button pushers or guys who can do anything if you set it up for them and hold their hands. 2) being the guys who are good enough to make things on their own but are just sloppy, good enough type guys. 3) being the smallest group, they will be true machinist. It aint good enough to be in the tolerance zone but rather hit the number stated.

If you want to be in the 3 group you got alot of book work to learn. 2 of the most important will be right triangles and gd&t. You need to now all the trig functions for triangles and you need to know at least the most basic aspects of gd&t

Let us know what your looking for and I'll try my best to help you find it. Be it things to make or actual books to learn
Click to expand...


This is all nice but not quite right, at least not here in Ct. A true Machinist, after his apprenticeship is almost complete has one last task before taking the Journeymans test. He is given the raw stock and the print. He is then told how much time he has to complete the task. He can ask for NO help. Start to finish is up to him. There is no given way to do it. After 4 years and 8000 hours you should be ready.

My mentor believed in "If you did it right, you know it so he never told you. Heaven help you if you did it wrong." I have taught apprentices myself. I like the ones with no machine school training. They have no bad habits yet.

"Billy G"
 
chuckorlando, I think I got the book and math part right, I'm studying Engineering. My goal is for my work to be of excellent quality. I'm collecting as many books as I can and putting hours into the workshop almost everyday.
 
Carlos SA said:
Reading through this forum I see that there are a few professional machinists that have mentioned training as apprentices as part of their education.

I was wondering if those machinists that happen to read this could please share some apprentice exercises. I have not had the opportunity to be trained as an apprentice but I would like to develop my skills. I was thinking I would post my results of the practice exercises in this thread and hopefully others will join in too.

Regards,
Carlos.
Click to expand...

When I was in high school the counselors bounce me around from a business career to a vocational one. I liked wood shop but allergies didn't like it. I was then assigned to machine shop. We made a metal letter opener, ball pein hammer and a couple of machinist jacks. There were a few other tools too. I could never turn a good thread while in school. I was taught to setup and operate lathes by changing gear trains, shapers and drill presses. Milling machines were for the second year students so I didn't get to set them up. After high school I went to work as a beginner in that I setup some machines and on the others I just ran production.
After being turned down for the draft Mom thought maybe collage would be better career choice. I entered a two year drafting design program offered by Purdue at the Indiana University Campus. After about five years I finally graduated. Still the power of turning metal kept calling me. Seems the longest job I had was about three years. I was in GE's last apprenticeship class of Drafting and Tool & Die class until it closed nine months before completion. Still I had no papers of Journeyman Machinist but tons of experience. Got a six month job assigned to Texas Instrument in Dallas, Tx. There I was challenged to keep a one to two thousands tolerance machining soft aluminum parts for their production equipment. The last job I had was at McDonnell Douglas, St.Louis, MO., as Aircraft toolmaker. There I went from a Grade One Toolmaker to a Grade Two. Finally completing my Apprenticeship. That is probably the longest journey but it was an interesting one. On and off I think it took me 20 years. Seems I would get laid off during every modern Recession.

Well that is my story.
 
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I aint talking a true machinist on paper. There are some true machinist IMO that have never left their own garage. I'm talking a guy who can hit the mark, look at a drawing and see how to get to the end result, a problem solver and a thinker. Every one cant be a machinist but anyone can run a machine. The teacher gives us blue prints and send us on our way. Like yours, he has nothing to say unless we are wrong. He even lets us screw our own pooch and learn from it. But with out triangles your not getting to far with him and without gd&t you cant understand the prints. Our current project you need to mill two 20* angles with a reamed hole between them. You need trig for the sine bar and trig to find and check the angles. He dont expect us to know all about gd&t but you cant work off your datum if you dont even know what a datum is.

My point is you can become one of 3 kinds. If you wish to be what I would consider a machinist you need to know alot more then how to run a machine. If you cant find 21* on a lathe using just a indicator your not a machinist. If you cant set 7 holes in a 6.325 Dia circle equally spaced with pen and paper or at least just a calculator your not a machinist. And you almost certainly are not a machinist at the end of most machinist schools. And many who have 30yr on a mill, well they still are not a machinist.

Are you looking for blue prints of things to make? I can copy what we are doing as we do it. What machines do you have access to?
Bill Gruby said:
This is all nice but not quite right, at least not here in Ct. A true Machinist, after his apprenticeship is almost complete has one last task before taking the Journeymans test. He is given the raw stock and the print. He is then told how much time he has to complete the task. He can ask for NO help. Start to finish is up to him. There is no given way to do it. After 4 years and 8000 hours you should be ready.

My mentor believed in "If you did it right, you know it so he never told you. Heaven help you if you did it wrong." I have taught apprentices myself. I like the ones with no machine school training. They have no bad habits yet.

"Billy G"
Click to expand...
 
Well I'm certainly no Machinist. What the heck is gd&t?
 
I didn't disagree with you Chuck. I just added to your statement. I will add no more as my 40 years as a paper machinist is worthless. I have a cutter grinder to build. Have fun.

"Billy G"
 
Just bringing this thread back on track,
Carlos SA said:
I was wondering if those machinists that happen to read this could please share some apprentice exercises. I have not had the opportunity to be trained as an apprentice but I would like to develop my skills.
Click to expand...

Carlos, If you want to start where I did my first project was learning to file a round bar square. And when we had done that they let us put the square bar in a lathe and turn it round again. We then made a small tapered punch from the rod we had turned. progressing from there we made a small hammer, some parallel clamps, and the big project for our 1st year, a surface gauge.
It will depend on whether you want to go back to the start or not. A good machinist needs to know how to fit things by hand as well as how, and when, to "machine"
If you want to start machining then make some simple tools and accessories to use for the machines you have.
Machinist' jack
Centre punch
Parallel clamp
Carriage stop
Mill table stop.

Cheers Phil

- - - Updated - - -

Carlos,
What machine/s do you have, or access to? And do you have a particular interest area? That will give us some idea of what may be a good project to start with.

Cheers Phil
 
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