# The Truth be Told



## Grumpy Gator (Nov 23, 2017)

_ Not counting my family and friends the thing I am most grateful for is all the members here who share their time and knowledge with the ever growing membership that reaches out to us in a search for this knowledge.
 So many times have I read of your thanking us for the staff efforts to keep this place running smooth. But in reality, we are just your back up. without you people, there would be no need of us.
 In the not to distant feature we, with your help, will become the biggest and best site on the "World Wide" web.
 And I for one am proud to say I helped out.
**Gator**    _


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## mikey (Nov 23, 2017)

grumpygator said:


> _In the not to distant feature we, with your help, will become the biggest and best site on the "World Wide" web._



As far as I'm concerned, we're already there, Gator.


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## Downwindtracker2 (Nov 23, 2017)

On another site,  , when I first got my lathe and mill/drill I asked innocently about the PC brand chuck that came with them. The nicest  replies were merely snotty, other ones were more personal. Since I was a ticketed millwright working in maintenance shop , retired now, my job was fixing machinists mistakes on almost daily basis, my back went up. Operators and engineers also helped pay the mortgage .

No, this is a nice site to hang around.


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## Grumpy Gator (Nov 23, 2017)

_ And we will stay this way because of people like you. 
**G**_


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## Terrywerm (Nov 23, 2017)

"The other place" currently has 46314 members, so we have a ways to go to be the biggest.  That's okay though, because I really don't care about being the biggest, I just want to help this place be the best, and I think we are there already.


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## T Bredehoft (Nov 23, 2017)

This is the only website (that I know of) that deals with hobby machinists, with professionals here to help, not because they have to, but because they want to see the skills continue.

_Edit:_ correct grammar


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## kd4gij (Nov 23, 2017)

I am a member on most of the machinist boards. I only hang out on this one.  But when the other sites come up in a google search I can see the pic's or download a pdf that I need.


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## HMF (Nov 24, 2017)

We cannot disparage "other forums," much as we might feel tempted. That makes us them, and that we cannot be,

On September 10, 2010, the day I thought about what happened to me elsewhere, I was walking to my job, I realized like most others these days, I ought to have a web site for my career, So I bought my name as a domain. At the same time, I realized that I could put another domain on the web hosting service. I was very hurt and dejected about what happened when I sought to learn about machining online. I had bought a machine, which still lies in pieces to this day (a SB Heavy 10 lathe), and I had questions about how to get it working. I decided to open a little "answer site" that I could use to get some help.  When I got to work, I looked up domain names. I was a lawyer who wanted to machine as a hobby, so I figured "hobby machinist" would be a good name, but it was taken. The same guy has owned it since 2005 without using it. He keeps renewing it, claiming he is going to start a machinist site. I offered him $750 out of my own pocket for it, but he declined. So I went with hobby-machinist, which his probably correct grammar anyway. I set it up with free forum software from the web host. Took me 5 days or so to get it running. Once along the way, someone hacked it, and destroyed it. So that is why September 15 is our official anniversary date.

I have no desire for us to be the biggest or best. Only for us to be the most helpful and most welcoming. That we can be.
We always need to help others, and to share what we know. Some people who know a lot, have sadly decided we are not worth sharing with.
One of them Adam Booth, Abom79, maker of many wonderful YouTube videos, has not participated here since 2014, although he has been here recently. He also ignored my friendshp overtures. That is what makes me saddest, that there are such skilled people out there who bear grudges, some for many years now, and will not share their wonderful skills with us. After all, we don't wish to make money from the knowledge, only to learn and be educated by them.

And that is what makes me saddest, I suppose. The lack of sharing by some of the most skilled.
I beg them to reconsider this, and help us to learn from them.
Some people are just hard, I suppose.


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## Billh50 (Nov 24, 2017)

Through the 40 + yrs of my career as a machinist, toolmaker & designer. I learned a lot from the "old Timers" at places I have worked. Many will help the newbie only if they feel he wants to learn. I carried on that thought through the years. I will always help someone who wants to learn when I can. And one thing I have found out through the years is that no matter how much you think you know. There is always something new to learn.


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## brino (Nov 24, 2017)

I too have memberships at some other sites, but this is the only one I visit daily.



Nels said:


> I have no desire for us to be the biggest or best. Only for us to be the most helpful and most welcoming.



In my book "the most helpful and the most welcoming" would make it the "best"!

(EDIT: ....and we are already there!)

-brino


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## Cactus Farmer (Nov 24, 2017)

I am a geologist and gunsmith. I can make you a gun from raw iron including the barrel with rifling. I've had more than one attack of the "high back" variety. There are MANY "experts (has been drip under pressure). I have developed a thicker skin and an uncanny ability to turn and walk away. My memory is intact if I ever run across them again...... I am also able to learn even today at my advanced age.


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## HMF (Nov 24, 2017)

Billh,

God bless you.

The people on here desperately want to learn. 
The US is a service economy now. We don't make anything anymore. 
I'm not trying to be political, just realistic.
Older Americans have the knowledge.
When the people with knowledge pass, the knowledge is gone. Gone forever.
Unless we save it somehow, like on here, or on videos.
I want to do that. I feel that we need to manufacture things again. 

I can't learn anything here in NYC. The manufacturing is basically gone here.
Machine shops are now lofts and studios for people to live in. 
The nearest community college with courses is in Brentwood, a 2 hour trip with rush-hour traffic.
I paid $200 to reserve a spot, couldn't make it in time, and lost the money.


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## Billh50 (Nov 24, 2017)

I am here to help when I can. But I have also learned a few things. Such as various setups for hard to hold parts, different ways to get the same results, etc. No one can ever say they know everything. But they can always share what they do know. This is the one site I visit every day because there is a lot of knowledge here and people willing to share that. Newbies are never given a hard time just because they ask a question. Because of that I am willing to help when I can.
The people here are always willing to help someone in any way they can. I know because some have helped me in various ways that make me thankfull I am a member here.


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## Downwindtracker2 (Nov 24, 2017)

Nels,on the 'net, a fellow posted about the various brand of micrometers , sorry, I didn't book mark. In it he said a country's  industrial revolution could be traced by their production of micrometers. I found that very interesting.

All hands on creativity seems to be fading thing. Like when a language is lost, so is all the knowledge.


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## David S (Nov 24, 2017)

All I can say is that Nels and the admins make this site possible, but it is all the courteous members that make it feel so welcoming.  The best isn't necessarily the biggest with most members, but rather the most welcoming and friendly.  Atmosphere is everything, and I would think that being the congenial group that we are, it must make it easy for the moderators...they can just sit back and watch us all being nice to each other.

Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.

David


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## Scruffy (Nov 24, 2017)

This site has been a god send for me. I had a bad head engiery in 2012. Never had any machining  experience at all . Friend gave me a 820 Logan lathe and after it sait for a year it all started . I’m hooked old iron disease .
I’m only 58 but have alteady talked to my wife about if and when I pass. I don’t want to make a profit on anything. Just want a good home
Everything will be posted here before any where else.
Thanks ron


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## Silverbullet (Nov 25, 2017)

I to am on several sites, but I hang here constantly . My wife thinks I have a girl friend behind her back , always typing on this tablet. So I've per her see for herself. So I'm ok with her. 
This site has given me an outlet to try and help others do what I loved . I started in vocational four years but three in the machine tool & dye technology. In that time I was taught the old time way , file a block square to machining , heat treatment , grinding all phases, metallurgy,drafting & mechanical drawing. Then out in the real world I worked in many different types of shops doing my apprenticeship and night school for more metallurgy and drafting. My best way to learn is by watching , listening , asking questions. The older machinist who I worked with taught tons of tricks to do jobs , measuring , finishes . I ran machines from the turn of the century , overhead line flat belts still used in one shop I worked in. 72 hour weeks for two years I lived on coffee in there. And I also worked in a classified government job shop , made Forman in three months there. My knowledge from past shops and old machinist tricks made there jobs easier and better. We had less turn downs from inspectors and they made a lot more parts for more money. 
So I'm just trying to help , life turned to crap for me after I became disabled . But I'm a fighter , and will be till I'm gone.


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## core-oil (Nov 25, 2017)

As wellas hanging out in this site I also hang out in another,  I get good Karma from both  (horses for courses )I guess,  This little site is helpfull and friendly  I guess that is what life should be all about  Over the years I have become more and more saddend with what the death of industry has thrown up, In the good old 1950 till 1987 period, over here in Europe the manufacturing trades have vanished like snow off the top of a wall,
   Nowadays generally speaking the youngsters do not seem by and large to be greatly interested in having anything to do with engineereing trades in general,  In that respect I do not blame them, They see it as a road which will be somewhat rocky to travail. On one facet which springs to mind, how will the likes of preserved steam railways, ,steamships and industrial sites get skilled manpower in the future?

  On one day a week, I tootle off to my model making club, really nice guys, average ages from fifty to late seventies about possibly half of the guys are not time served machine shop workers, They get along in their own way,   What saddens me is the fact that only about three of us can sharpen a tool, everyone else use throw away tool tips , When it comes to measuring, no one but two others and me me uses the old type verniers with a proper engraved scale  Everyone else uses digital read out tooling .
O.K. so I am *****ing to myself , But I have to remind myself that it is a free world and if the guys are happy achieving the build of their own projects  Fair do's,   I tend to be an backward type of guy who harks back to how the old guys from my young days (and before them) would carry out manufacturing, I still live in a world of shapers, planers and two belt driven lathes ,  As this old world keeps turning over (hopefully) for another thirty years such methology & knowledge of basic hand skills will be gone, and our dependency on the likes of China and other pacific rim countries will be a strangle hold and we will become an even more depressing "Has Been "culture   Thank God for  The Hobby Machinist for its down to earth approach for the learners & beginners.


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## 7milesup (Dec 2, 2017)

Love this site.  Absolutely love it.  I have lurked and learned and I am so grateful for the folks on here and their wonderful attitude.  

Thank you to all.


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