What Type of Machining Experience and Interest Do We Have On This Site?

What Types of Machining Interest and Experience Do We Have on This Site? (Select as many as apply.)

  • Hobby use for general fabrication & repair

    Votes: 288 84.5%
  • Business Shop owner

    Votes: 37 10.9%
  • Professional Machinist

    Votes: 59 17.3%
  • Tool ownership ie Lathe & mill

    Votes: 262 76.8%
  • Level of experience: Experienced

    Votes: 86 25.2%
  • Level of experience: Newbie

    Votes: 104 30.5%
  • Level of experience: Moderate

    Votes: 138 40.5%
  • CNC experience

    Votes: 64 18.8%
  • Formal education from a tech school

    Votes: 86 25.2%
  • Formal training in Machining

    Votes: 74 21.7%
  • Other: Specify Below

    Votes: 47 13.8%

  • Total voters
    341
I was trained in 1970 and spent nine months standing in in front of a metal bench with a hacksaw and file and a metal vice for making test pieces, learning how to file metal to a fine art and what is known as draw filing was not allowed! It taught me discipline and to take my time to try and get it right first time!

It stood me in good stead, later, when I joined the air force there was some more basic training for a couple of weeks using a file and a hacksaw again. I took my eye of the ball when measuring a test piece we had 30 hours to make. Complacency had kicked in, I had about 5 hours left of my allocated time and cut the piece short, so I had to start again. All the lads laughed co's they knew my history and suspected I'd blown it!

My Dockyard training helped starting afresh I finished the job just in time and still got a 98% score for my work! I had the last laugh. All thanks to my trainer in the Dockyard a Mr Urry who I gues will have passed on to greater heights now! Boy was he tough! His favourite line to us young ones was "I'm a bastard! and I've got the papars to prove it!@ we all thought it must be true! He was hard but fair! He was my mentor and will always have my respect!

I hope you like this bit of my history.

kind regards colin
 
Hi,
Since about 1993, when I took a night course in basic machining and have lusted for a lathe until I got one in 2007.
My background is one a Metal fabricator, high pressure vessel coded welder and instructor .
I enjoying making and fixing things . My interests are all of the place ranging from knife making to muzzle loading and a few places in between. I have taught in the high school system for a decade or so but recently pulled the pin on that due to attitude problems

I have the lathe and am looking for a reasonable priced mill with a view to generating a little earning capacity when I retire.
My goal is to to have the tools and machines for a light engineering shop.Light engineering meaning,if you can carry in in, I might be able to work on it for you.
My machining experience is limited to turning,facing,parting off, taper cutting, and tapping external and internal static threads. I'm not far of cutting my first single point thread

I live in city that is supported by the coal and sugar industries and for the average bloke getting work of this nature performed is too small potatoes for the engineering businesses and they won't do work at a reasonable rate. my goal is to fill that niche.
Ok thats me in a nutshell

Oz
 
Spent a little over year and half working for a brilliant machinist/designer (Stever McMahon at Creative Metal Works in Bridgehampton, NY) totally under his direction. Worked a Bridgeport a lot and a lathe of can't-remember-brand (recollection says it was a Colchester). As it was an architectural metal fabrication shop, spent a lot of hours w/ belt sanders putting "brushed" finish on various projects.

This was a very cool project. For Mel Brooks' Broadway play, "The Producers", we had to make a few dozen armatures that would be the backbone of mannequins dressed as Nazi soldiers. The armature would be wheeled around by a live actor and had handles so the actor could articulate the dummies.

We made the prototype, got approved, and had to make 27 of them (54 bodies in total). For that, I took the designer's drawing and input the torso/shoulder/leg pieces into the computer via AutoCad. Sent them out for laser cutting. The rest was entirely fabricated by us.
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This is more the kind of projects Steve would get. Finished metal work for fancy houses in the Hamptons. This set was all for the same client made out of bronze. All machined down to .001. Round table folded down to make smaller square. Large dining table was a bit difficult to engineer as the square bronze hollow tube had to be supported at each intersection. For that we made inserts that were machine screwed together, inserted in 3 axes, and then low temperature soldered (that was an experiment as the high temperature solder melted the bronze). To finish, the bronze was darkened and waxed.

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We did lots of stair railings; this one for a very modern house on the beach. All brushed stainless steel (LOTS of brushing!) Again, all machined to very tight tolerance. All welds ground down, discoloration removed via electrolysis/acid, and brushed finish re-applied at every weld by hand - by me and a buddy! Work done in the dead of winter...not so bad buy we had 200' of railing to install around the pool deck and over the dune down to the beach.

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Another stair railing. Cold rolled steel, darkened, waxed.

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A ceiling installation for the sales office of a condo in NYC. Architect wanted a textural, 3D effect. Can't see it so well in these photos, but the stainless steel mesh is of 3 sizes (sourced from England used to sift/separate gravel) and hung at 3 different levels overlapping (we used a water level to install which was so cool in its simplicity/effectiveness). They loved the result so much they used the treatment throughout the lobby of the condo (I had left by then).

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I am building a kit helicopter and wanted to make custom parts for it, asthetic, or otherwise non crucial to flight pieces. I bought a lathe (14"x40"), mill, press, and assortment of other machining tools, odd's 'n' ends, probably 100 pieces, all together as a package from an elderly gent who could no longer physically use them. ....I still feel guilty for the price I paid for everything, but he wouldn't take a penny more, happy that everything went together to a good home.

The helicopter project starts this Fall. In the meantime, I plan on learning, firing up the machine tools, and practice making......punches, or something similar.

Mylo

Hi Mylo

Which heli kit are you building?

I "re-launched" my interest in machining while building my Rotorway 162F Exec about 15 years ago.
 
I have no formal training in machining, just what I picked up from my dad, who owned a machine shop for many years before and after World War II. Our basement and garage was pretty well stocked with tools while growing up. He liked Delta Rockwell and Delta Milwaukee tools, my eye is still drawn to them.

I inherited most of his tools and still have them. Wish I could've kept his welders.

Took 4 years of high school shop (if I remember those years correctly).

Got a degree in Electrical Engineering and have been designing small computers for the automotive and other industries for close to 25 years.

I re-launched my interest in machining while building my Rotorway 162F Exec helicopter kit in 1998. I bought an RF-31 clone mill/drill, mainly just for locating drilled holes accurately, and a 11" x 26" Grizzly lathe, and much of the attendant accessories and related tooling.

Still fly my helicopter every weekend in the summer months.

I have recently purchased a 1967 Series 1 Bridgeport which I am now whipping back into shape. Will be transplanting the DRO from the mill/drill, or installing a new one.

Have been bitten hard by the machinery bug this time around. Watch Craigslist frequently for "gems". Have outgrown my corner in the basement, can't get the Bridgeport down there anyways. Will have to build a shop!
 
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All I have is a Waterjet at work. I am not a machinist. None of our senior people wanted to take the time or effort to learn how to use it. Another bottom feeder and I took it upon ourselves to learn some 2d cad and start making parts. Shortly after we figured it out everyone was whining we were running it, so they filed a grievance with the union. Union and company to them to quit whining. We have had it 2 years now and it is still the other guy and me running it.

I am in the process of building a cnc router and have ordered a x2 mini mill. Just waiting on the ups man.

Grandfather was a master machinist, brother and cousin are cnc machinist. I will most likely to a machinist spot at work, all manual machines. About a dozen lathes and half dozen mills.
 
Hi, I was a Chem. Tech. in a chemical co. For 37 years, after retiring I was giving the chance to go to school for retraining. There was a limited choice of classes I could pick from, most where health care class. One was machine and tool making, the one I picked. It was a one year and all day, wasn't sure I could do this at 65 of age. The school was a Vo-Tect, and all High School students, then I really wasn't sure if I could do that. The teacher had a machine shop for 20+ years, a great person to learn from. The students, well, some wanted to be there, most didn't. I finished school this January 17, learn good amount about machining and today kids. In the end it was a great period of my life. I have now purchase a atlas and south Bend lathe, which I have just got going, thank to some people here. I also got a Ro Fung bench top mill, maybe a mistake, time will tell. You can say that I have replaced my treacher with all of you people on this forum. My computer skill are not in posting picture as of yet, I have some of things I have made and want to post, a hammer with interchangeable brass, aluminum and plastic heads also a boring tool with a quick change post and ball maker on quick change post, plus parts for my lathes. My next project is a theading dail fo SB. I am also a proud ex Marine and Vietnam-Nam vet, a hugh Pittsburgh Steelers fan and somehow been married for 38 years with two grown children. Thanks for viewing, Chester from Ambridge, Pa.
 
I got into machining as an adjunct to my woodworking. I design and make secret boxes (a secret box is one that you cannot open
unless you know the secret). I found that some of the mechanisms in the box designs required fairly precise machining work.
I also enjoy precision machining just for the fun of it.

When I bought my first lathe (Jet 9x20) I was afraid that I would use it to kill (or greatly injure) myself so I signed up for the
2 year Precision Machining program at Lake Washington Technical College (Seattle area, East side). I enjoyed it greatly.
For any of you that are located close-by, check it out.

puzzler_ken
 
I got introduced to machining by volunteering at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad. They restore and maintain several steam locomotives that were used in the logging industry. My first real engine build from castings was Cole's popcorn wagon engine.
 
I do not have any formal training along the lines of a trade certificate or such like yet I did work in the trade as a professional model maker for some years.
One of my closest friends is fully qualified as a toolie and it is often very noticeable how differently we approach projects we tackle together.

When it comes to making gears or other highly complex items with detailed drawings there is no doubt he leaves me in the dust but when something has to be made where drawings don't exist then I find I have the edge as in my time on the bench drawings were seldom seen.

We often have long discussions about how to proceed and more than once he has threatened to buy me a blue and white striped apron but I like to think that together we can do almost anything.

A lot of the stuff I do requires an imaginative approach and many of the ways I find to use my lathe or mill just are not in the text books.
Sometimes I think it would be nice to have been trained in the "proper" way to do things but in some other ways I think this can stifle your creativity a bit.
As long as you treat you machines with respect and take care of them properly it shouldn't matter how you use them.

It's the end result that counts.
 
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