I'm a dabbler and I like to know how things work. I'm also a history geek, all kinds of history not too fussy, but particularly like to see how and why things evolved to where they are now. I watched a documentary a couple years ago about Chinese food in America and honestly found it fascinating. Machines fit into both of these interests.
Luckily they still had shop classes when I was in school so I got some exposure to woodworking, metal working and auto mechanics. My dad also did handyman jobs on the side when I was a kid, often bringing me along to "help".
It kind of came up in the thread about radial arm saws and shopmate all in one tools thread, but growing up I thought everybody knew how to wire a light switch or change the oil in their car. It wasn't a hobby just a part of owning a house or automobile. Many of the adults I was around just did these things. My dad worked on our house, he worked on other peoples houses. My uncle (my dad's brother} had a 1967 Chevelle that he was always playing with. I helped my Grandfather install a home built solar pool heater years before solar was a thing people did. My grandfather also owned a machineshop, so I got a little exposure to that, but very little. That was work and he left it at work.
So tinkering was well established by the time I graduated high school. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I liked camping but that isn't a job right?
I was "smart" everybody said so, so was expected to do something "smart" as a career, so I started a Mechanical Engineering degree at community college. The drafting was neat, but I was frustrated. How can you design a better mousetrap if you don't use mousetraps.
Looking for jobs I saw some fire departments hiring and that sounded interesting. I found out the college had a fire science program so changed majors and found a local volunteer fire department to get on with. Got a job as a lifeguard for a summer then worked on an ambulance. Then I went to Paramedic school all this with the goal of working for a city fire department. Then out of the blue someone gave me this job announcement for the US Forest Service as a temporary firefighter and I got the job. I didn't know much about the organization but you got to work in the forest, and that is almost like getting paid to camp. I worked as a temp firefighter a couple of summers and then got a job as a firefighter at Fort Ord when the military started closing bases in the 1990s. That was also a limited term job so when I got an offer for a full time job with the Forest Service I took it. Ended up sticking with that for 22 years retiring as an Engine captain last November.
Oh yeah, machines... so one of my hobbies is building models. I tend to go a little nuts with everything I do, not good enough to just glue a kit together, no I have to make it different. I started making fire engines. Not a lot of kits available so I started scratch building bits from plastic, aluminum, brass, craft store knick knacks etc. That led to resin casting, soldering and then I saw the really cool kids had these neat mini-lathes and mills.
I'm sure everybody knows how that goes, which machine do you buy? How do you get it when your budget is 1/2 (or less) of reality. It isn't easy to get info from other modelers online because everybody wants a lathe, but most will never spend the money (car modelers in particular are cheapskates) so the guys who have them burn out talking about them. I quickly figured out that the super cheap machine tools you can find on Amazon and Ebay (6 in 1 for $200) are basically toys which narrowed it down to the Sieg mini-machines, Taig or Sherline. A couple of the guys who did take the time to help me used Sherline and they felt strongly about them.
There simply isn't a model site though where you can really talk about this stuff without constant interruption (whoa is that a lathe, where did you get that, how much, whoa that's too much... maybe I can use a Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon, oh they don't have them...) so I started looking around and this seemed to be the only site that really welcomed self-trained knob turners with a lot of questions (machinist is way to advanced a term for what I do) and didn't treat mini-machines as glorified toys.
Oh, yeah, Mikey should be getting customer referral checks from Sherline...
Wow, did I really just write all this? I guess you have found out I also like to talk.
i get paid to fix things others carelessly destroy.
it's interesting how a bowling ball can be broken with a broomstick.
i can't explain the physics behind the statement, but, it must be like the bumble bee that shouldn't be able to fly typa thing.
I can relate to that statement. I have often heard, you never refer to something as firefighter proof, because that will just be seen as a challenge. Some of the stuff I've seen guys break just leaves me scratching my head.
