Questions for career Machinists.

BGHansen said:
Our local community college (Lansing Community College) used to have a very strong shop program back in the 1970's and 1980's. Their machine shop had over 20 lathes, 20 mills, half-dozen surface grinders, etc. and all of the woodworking stuff. Then CNC came into vogue (for good reason) and a lot of the manual machinery was sold off.

Bruce
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That's kind of a shame. Manual machining isn't for everybody or for every shop, but I know of one busy fabrication shop that doesn't own any CNC equipment, and another that only has one CNC mill they use to run parts only a few days a month. The one with no CNC machines has a dozen employees, and not that long ago he started with just one. The other has easily over 50 guys working for them.

I think some basic knowledge of manual machining operations could help along the way.
 
Our local technical college had an excellent machinist training program from the 1960's through the 1980's. Several large and up to date shops, and apprentice programs. Somewhere in the early 90's getting your hands dirty was seen as something the latest generation wouldn't be interested in so over about a 10 year period all the shops closed down and apprenticeship program was abandoned.

Along about 2005 all the local businesses started to see mass retirements, and couldn't find replacement employees that were properly trained. Fortunately there was a change in management at the tech school and the new people in charge resurrected the programs. We now have 4 large shops complete with at least a dozen manual lathes and mills, and another dozen or so CNC vertical and horizontal machining centers. The program is back in full swing and turning out educated and eager graduates ready to be members of the work force. There's now a waiting list to get into the programs.

Back in 1010 or 2011 I was looking for a new surface grinder for the shop. I didn't know what brands to be looking at so a local vendor suggested I enroll in an evening machining class to try some out. They had over a dozen manual and automatic machines of every brand imaginable. All were either brand new or less than a couple years old.
 
IMO outside of utilities, refinery;s and paper mills machinist are woefully under paid. The skills learned and needed and the time it takes to be proficient they should be paid up there with electricians and I&C techs.
The college I went to, St. Cloud Technical & Community College also had a thriving machine tool program.
 
ddickey said:
IMO outside of utilities, refinery;s and paper mills machinist are woefully under paid. The skills learned and needed and the time it takes to be proficient they should be paid up there with electricians and I&C techs.
The college I went to, St. Cloud Technical & Community College also had a thriving machine tool program.
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That is probably true, but there is a huge gap between a machine operator and a machinist. I can teach somebody (who wants to learn) how to turn a thread safely as well as I can or better in little time at all. That does not make them a machinist. That doesn't even make them a lathe operator. That makes them able to do one job. In a day I can teach them how to turn thread(s) and measure them properly. It still doesn't make them a machinist other than in the sense of being a professional per the IRS. ie: They get paid to do machining.

I used to get guys all the time who wanted to start working at top technician wages when I was still contracting. A technician is somebody who can go look at a problem, diagnose it, and fix it. A good technician does it in a reasonable amount of time and doesn't cause other problems. I never had a single guy who could trouble shoot as fast as me or with as few secondary problems in the 23 years I was a contractor. If I did I would have paid him a butt load of money and kissed his ass every day to keep him on the job.

I kind of look at machining the same way. I've only been learning to be a hobby hack self taught shade tree wannabe machinist for about ten years. Anybody who wanted to work for me as a machinist at decent wages had darned well be better than me and faster than me. (I'm not hiring. LOL. I only take as much work as I can do by myself without killing myself.)
 
My license(s) said, "Low Voltage Communications." I think one of them is still current. I did alarm, phone, video, intercom, sound (pro, res, and commercial), access control, environmental monitoring, TVRO, networking... Oh geez. I could fill a page with the different types of jobs we did. Along with quite a number of jobs that fell under the category "supplemental trades." I was running a PC service business out of my house in 1993, delivering pizza on the weekends, and was the shipping and receiving clerk for Tool and Supply during the week when my first contracting customer called me. I actually told them I didn't want the job at first. When I quit contracting on December 31st 2016 that customer was still with me. I called them personally and asked them to give the company that was buying out my accounts a fair chance.

I had customers who would call me and say, "We have an (XYZ System) giving us problems. Can you fix it?" It was rare that I couldn't and then usually only if the mfg had proprietary distribution. Often I could even then unless they needed OEM parts. Even then sometimes I had connections. Often I learned a system while I was troubleshooting it for less total (and charging more per hour) then the guy who came before me and didn't fix it. Yeah I am bragging a bit, but I enjoyed being a technician and trouble shooting problems. I just didn't care for how the contracting business changed after the depression that started with the real estate crash the end of 2005. I was still making money, but you had to be hard nosed with everybody. I didn't like that at all. I just wanted to be a technician and fix stuff. By 2012 I found I sometimes had to square off nose to nose with general contractors in order to be treated fairly. It was a fight. (Usually not physical. LOL) I can fight, but I don't enjoy it. I enjoyed being a technician.

To be totally fair. I probably did my very first paid machining project for a job I did for the Justice department in about 95 or 96. I made a press die for recessing photo sensors mounted in metal plates so people walking by wouldn't abrade the lenses when they brushed up against them going through the border crossing turnstiles. It was for a people counting system I designed. Well I didn't design the components. Just the system. Yes, I was a listed GSA contractor for a number of years. Did work for Justice, Marine and Airforce contractors, and directly for the Army.
 
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P.S. What is I&C? If you meant IT I was pretty good at pissing off IT techs. It was just a small portion of what I did. Some of them were better at software and network protection, but I knew the plant from the ground up. Literally. My first job in communications was maintaining the buried plant for a small rural telephone company. (and T carrier, and analog carrier, and multi channel analog microwave, and whatever else needed fixing.)
 
Getting back to the pay gap for machinists. The other problem is there is little or no upside for a company to teach somebody more than they need done anymore. If you need somebody to turn a fixed profile over and over again, or you need somebody to put pallets in and out of a machine that's all you need to teach them. You don't need to teach them how to troubleshoot a problem or design a part or program a machine. Every shop needs to have atleast one guy who can do that. Often he is the only one in the shop getting the pay you think all machinists should get and to be honest he is probably the only one in the shop that really is a machinist. Atleast by my definition. Maybe not by the definition of the old school machinists. To them nobody in the shop is a "real" machinist.
 
MLB said:
Hello, I'm in the process of applying to college for an associates degree in Machine Tool Technology. The company I was working for closed it's doors and moved to Mexico and I have the option to attend school. One of the forms requires me to ask three different Machinists eight questions about their career. I don't need your name or any contact info but the form does ask for company name and your title. If any career Machinists has five to ten minutes to spare please let me know. I will send a private message with the questions and you can just private message me the answers. Any help would be greatly appreciated as it would be helping me secure my future.
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Back on topic... if you need another, I'll be happy to try and answer the questions...

-Bear
 
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