Whatz a hobbyist?

[NCjeeper]

But wait it gets worse, I just bought another tool just in case it might come in handy.

Yep you have got the disease too.

 

[mikey]

Hey Toz, I know about making tools for your tools but have you considered the fact that you CAN?

How many average joes can do what you can do? Machinists in general have a greater fund of knowledge than most guys out there and they're amongst the most self-reliant. The most fun thing is that we are growing and creating things that otherwise would not exist, even if its a copy of something you saw somewhere. It is there because YOU made it and that is very cool!

I can't think of another hobby that leads you to learn so many other skills - welding, casting, anodizing, de-rusting, restoration, etc, etc. Or one that teaches you so much about math, physics, chemistry and even makes you dabble in minor medical procedures to repair yourself.

I have a lot of hobbies but none are so enabling and engaging as machining. I started this almost 30 years ago and have enjoyed it more than all the others combined. And due to the HM forum, I can interact with others of my ilk. Can't get too much better, I think.

 

[Tozguy]

I agree, but I think we've moved outside the hobbist boundries.

Not really, the principle works in just about any situation where we have to deal with someone else.

 

[Rustrp]

Not really, the principle works in just about any situation where we have to deal with someone else.

Yes in that context I agree, but my thoughts and feeling about my hobbies are mine, personal, and don't include the customers I deal with on a daily basis. My customers get the benefit of my love for my craft, my experience, what I've learned. The same applies to the H-M groups. We gather, we have different backgrounds, we share the hobby experience. Any negative expression from the outside, as I expressed to scwhite in my post #10 is about the other person's ill feelings, their expectations. When I bring them into my circle I dilute my hobby, and I refuse to do that.

Maybe consider giving away some of the things you have made, then make some more. -Russ

 

[mikey]

Been thinking about this and I wonder if there is a certain personality that gets drawn to machining. I've always been one with the need to know how and why something works. I remember the earliest (not the only) time I got butt whipped. I took apart my Grandmother's radio, the kind with vacuum tubes, to see how it worked and she caught me. She massaged my legs with a switch - remember when our parents and grandparents used those? It stung for days but I did get that radio reassembled and showed her it worked. Never touched her stuff again. Even as young as 2 years old, I pulled a plant out from its pot to see what kept it growing - my Mom wasn't happy with me about that, either.

I dunno' - curious, maybe? I wonder how many of us are like that. I bet that the count would be disproportionate to the general population.

I know one thing for sure and it was burned into my memory - don't let Grandma catch you doing something you shouldn't be doing!

 

[Tozguy]

Yes in that context I agree, but my thoughts and feeling about my hobbies are mine, personal, and don't include the customers I deal with on a daily basis. My customers get the benefit of my love for my craft, my experience, what I've learned. The same applies to the H-M groups. We gather, we have different backgrounds, we share the hobby experience. Any negative expression from the outside, as I expressed to scwhite in my post #10 is about the other person's ill feelings, their expectations. When I bring them into my circle I dilute my hobby, and I refuse to do that. -Russ

Russ, I salut your ability to do so. Turning a hobby into a business usually ends up ruining a perfectly good hobby in many cases.
You have kept the passion for and the focus on the craft through everything.

As Mikey mentioned, there seems to be something driving hobby machinists. We eat, drink and sleep machining for the sheer love of it. We enjoy doing it, dreaming about it, talking about it and never need a vacation from it. It shows up at an early age. Failure does not dissuade us. Plus, it seems to turn us into some pretty decent people, sometimes short on people skills (in my case anyway), but around tools we shine.

 

[hman]

So now instead of referring to myself as a hobbyist, I give my definition of it: I am self employed with a full order book and one big customer to keep happy.

... that customer being yourself ... or is it your spouse?

 

[Tozguy]

We are as one.

 

[Rustrp]

Been thinking about this and I wonder if there is a certain personality that gets drawn to machining.

I think everyone has gifts and talents. When we look at this a step further it falls into the category called passion, something we really like to do. I work on my car or truck, fix or repair but I am certain it isn't my passion. The same applied to airplanes. The apitude, mechanical abilities, and intelligence to do the job is there but when you begin troubleshooting the problem before leaving the shop, the challenge is gone. The same is true for some people who work as machinists, they do good work but it's not their passion. For some folks the amount of thinking (staying on task) gives them a headache. Staying on task is about retaining the pieces of the job when you take a break or go to lunch, then come back and start where you left off. Or, while you're at lunch you have an epiphany that solves the problem you were working on and don't feel like your lunch was sabotaged. Maybe this is a stretch beyond the hobbist but I guess that's why I don't think about retiring or have a specific date. With that said, I'll include that I'm not a workaholic, because I like to go places where there's no cell signal available.

Now Grandma's, that's a completely different topic.

 

[Buffalo20]

I basically grew up in a machine shop, in a rural upstate New York state village, run by my grandfather and his two brothers. I started stopping off for caramels, Lifesavers and milkshakes, later on, I was running errands, then running machines, who knows if I had not gone to college for a career, I eventually dropped, I might be running a small rural machine shop.

Fast forward 45-50 years later, I spend about 45% of my time manufacturing parts for the company I work for, getting paid to work in my own shop is great. I do fabrication, welding, machining and electrical work, the rest of my time is involved in servicing, starting up and repairing, industrial boilers.

I can run a lathe, a milling machine, a surface grinder and other machine tools, but do not consider myself a machinist, no where near fast enough, I do it because I enjoy it. I find the field very interesting and there always seems something else to learn.

Growing up, I knew exactly one person with a lathe or milling machine and 2-3 people with a welder, again fast forward 50 years, about 75% of the people I deal with on a daily basis own mills, lathes and welders, plus the people I associate with on the web sites, own them. At times it makes you wonder if you associate with them because they own machine tools, or if its because people of similar interest seem to gather together. I know most of the local machine shop owners by sight and a vast majority of them, by name.

Is it a hobby for me or is it more, I'm not sure, I enjoy the time in the shop, whether its for work, a part for some of friends, who race, a neighbor's lawn mower repair or a machine upgrade or rebuild, I find it very satisfying.