Adequate Hobbyist Drill Press?

[Larry$]

Where's the point in teaching kids the skills for jobs that no longer exist?

There's lots of stuff that needs fix'n. I live in the middle of the US, Lincoln, NE, where the main activity is growing corn. There is a scattering of manufacturing. Kawasaki has a good size plant making a variety of things under assorted name brands, also subway cars. Honda & Toyota have a joint venture that turns out seats and stampings. A big job shop, TMCO, turns out parts for the Claas (German ag equipment) plant near Omaha. A large railroad has repair shops for engines and rail cars. Quite a few smaller operations turning out parts or complete products. All of them have in house machining for maintenance & repair. The UK must have similar operations. BTW I lived in London for a few months a long time ago. Things seemed to be more rooted in the past than around here.

 

[Jake M]

I lived in London for a few months a long time ago. Things seemed to be more rooted in the past than around here.

That's because our past is a blink of an eye compared to theirs. They root less in their past, it just looks like they do it more because they've got ten times more past than we do, and arguably WAY more than that.

 

[jwmay]

Plenty of manufacturing in my neck of the woods as well. In fact, we could really use more people. Lol

 

[verbotenwhisky]

There's lots of stuff that needs fix'n. I live in the middle of the US, Lincoln, NE, where the main activity is growing corn. There is a scattering of manufacturing. Kawasaki has a good size plant making a variety of things under assorted name brands, also subway cars. Honda & Toyota have a joint venture that turns out seats and stampings. A big job shop, TMCO, turns out parts for the Claas (German ag equipment) plant near Omaha. A large railroad has repair shops for engines and rail cars. Quite a few smaller operations turning out parts or complete products. All of them have in house machining for maintenance & repair. The UK must have similar operations. BTW I lived in London for a few months a long time ago. Things seemed to be more rooted in the past than around here.

I have been harassing my state representative about bringing back the Vocational classes and Industrial Arts classes in our high schools, I believe we are being done a great disservice by the educational system which is attempting to push every soul into college. There are all kinds of trades jobs which pay a good living that do not require college, our K through 12 tax payer funded institutions should be turning out young adults who are prepared to be productive citizens and let the ones who qualify and want to go to college go.....

Mike Rowe is doing excellent work with trade schools and apprenticeships...

 

[Ultradog MN]

Yale Student Killed as Hair Gets Caught in Lathe (Published 2011)

Michele Dufault, a senior weeks from graduating, was found dead in a machine shop in a chemistry lab.

www.nytimes.com

I think it’s behind a paywall. But I took some screenshots for you.



View attachment 472411View attachment 472412

@Ultradog MN I am not trying to prove my opinion is right and yours is wrong. I do not care that you want to straw man a metal lathe into a hammer to minimize my position. I do not care if you believe it, and that you believe I’m less intelligent than you. I do not care if you want to believe there’s no difference in destructive power between a Taig and a Turnado. I’m just saying that every time the topic comes up, I will recommend a small machine to a new person. You’ll just have to tolerate that I can have an opinion too, or go up to the top of this page and “ignore” my posts. Makes no difference to me one way or the other.
You aren’t being realistic about humans in general if you think “not making mistakes” is a safety protocol. And I notice you aren’t willing to use 9A versus Turnado, or bullets versus pellets, but rather “hammer or bigger hammer”. It’s false equivalence intentionally used to maintain your stance. Tell me a .50 cal bullet is not more destructive than an air rifle pellet. You can’t. So you wrap it in some chicanery about getting hurt being impossible if you happen to know everything and always do it safely. It’s not reality. But again…the ignore button is right up top if my opinion is so darn triggering for you.

Thanks for the info on the girl.
An actual, real horror story and not the usual old wives tale or urban myth.
As for my "false equivalence" I'll trade you that for your hyperbole.
The girl who killed herself was an anomaly. A one in a billion event.
She was far more likely to have gotten struck by lighting.
I dont live my life according to bizarre, worst case, hyperbolic scenerios. I live by the law of averages.
I assume the average guy here has at least an inkling about the hazards of working around spinning machinery and doesn't need constant hen pecking to not get their fingers or hair in there.
I don't need slippy belts and entry level machines to protect me from myself and I dont think others do either.
Slippy belts are for those who lack understanding or can't learn safety.
I believe most guys here are smarter than you think and I give them credit for that.
I say work smartly and live boldly.
And leave what I think is your timidity for the faint of heart.

 

[projectnut]

Here's a blurb I wrote in 2020 about the technical college system in Wisconsin. There has been even more progress since then. Rock County has opened a similar technical training center in Milton Wisconsin about a mile from the high school. Kids interested in any of the technical careers can work classes from the center into their curriculum. Waushara county has done the same thing with a new technical center about 300 yards from the high school in Wautoma. The programs have been a huge success. The Verona school system is now once again incorporating wood working, machining, and auto repair classes into their high school curriculum. There's now a waiting list to get into the machining and auto repair programs at the technical colleges, and the high school classes are quickly filling up.

Previous Post:
In the late 80's and through the 90's technical training in our area was seen as a waste of time. Everyone was pushing the kids to get a college degree. The apprenticeships dried up, the high schools closed all the shops (wood, machine, and automotive, etc.) and tried to steer those interested in technical careers toward the computer programing side of things. They quickly found out quite a few kids weren't interested in programming or software development as a career. They were either left to fend for themselves or find someone in the community to mentor them.

In the early 2000's the baby boomers started retiring and it was a struggle to find qualified machinists, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, electricians, and other trades people. It was far too expensive to try and recreate all the high school technical programs even though there was a high demand for trained tradesmen. The light finally went on and the local high schools started partnering with the technical colleges.

Those interested in technical careers can now spend several hours a week at the technical colleges and learn their trade of choice. Even 15 years after the programs were initiated there are still plenty of openings for qualified tradesmen. Fortunately, the schools have recognized the problem and made proactive decisions to fill the needs. Our local technical college has 4 huge state of the art machine shops, a facility for training fire fighters, 2 automotive/ truck shops, a program for budding construction workers, training and apprenticeships for electricians, plumbers, and even heavy equipment operators.

I must say I am pleased with the progress being made. I would much rather see a kid pick a career they're interested in rather than go through a life of drudgery at a job that they can't stand.

On Edit: The new technical center in central Wisconsin is in Waushara County next to the Wautoma high School. I also changed it in the text above.

 

[SouthernChap]

There's lots of stuff that needs fix'n. I live in the middle of the US, Lincoln, NE, where the main activity is growing corn. There is a scattering of manufacturing. Kawasaki has a good size plant making a variety of things under assorted name brands, also subway cars. Honda & Toyota have a joint venture that turns out seats and stampings. A big job shop, TMCO, turns out parts for the Claas (German ag equipment) plant near Omaha. A large railroad has repair shops for engines and rail cars. Quite a few smaller operations turning out parts or complete products. All of them have in house machining for maintenance & repair. The UK must have similar operations.

Sure to some degree, but the UK manufactures very little these days so there are fewer of those manufacturing facilities to need servicing and we really are quite a small country and our national infrastructure like railways, etc., when/if they gets fixed at all, are fairly small potatoes.

I know every country has a similar complaint but the UK does seem to be at the extremes of the post WWII decline; going from a country that owned, albeit shamefully, a large chunk of the earth above sea level, to a small island next to a continent that wouldn't even entertain it joining that continent's economic club in just three decades does something bad to a nation's sense of worth.

The consequences of the dearth of manufacturing and a manifestation of that loss of national self-esteem in the UK, seems to be an utter disinterest in learning and teaching things like engineering and machining skills.

I lived in London for a few months a long time ago. Things seemed to be more rooted in the past than around here.

Well, one of the UK's remaining revenue streams is tourism and the appearance of tradition brings in the cash. Also, we're still kidding ourselves that we matter, and to keep up that pretence we have to pay lip-service to the past.

Honestly, I don't think us English know what or who we are and maybe it's time we accepted we haven't had a proper national identity since 1066 and give it up.

 

[Larry$]

eep up that pretence we have to pay lip-service to the past.

It seems like the longer a governing system has been in place the more laws are put in place and the more difficult it becomes to get anything approved. In the town I live in it can be seen. Everyone's "rights" and view of the world drags down what I consider "progress." Development of a major project was scrapped because a bug with different spots was found living in the area. The ultimate piece of environmental BS. People are what damages the environment! Get rid of them or at least their ever increasing #s. 100 years from now they will wonder what the hell were they thinking covering all those corn fields with suburbia! Rant ends.

 

[matthewsx]

Our daughter went to the district vocational school for a program called “manufacturing technology academy”. There were other kids there learning mechanics, construction, graphic arts, etc. Some of the kids that didn’t go there would make fun of the ones that did, calling them dummies or something less kind.

Long story short, our daughter was valedictorian of her HS class, earned an engineering degree and masters for U of M, and is now a senior engineer at her industry leading company at the age of 25.

Yes, we need to bring back shop class. Not just as special programs but actually at the school so its easy for anyone to attend. Working in our companies manufacturing engineering department I can see the difference between those who grew up using tools and those who just learned from books.

John

 

[pontiac428]

How is my bank going to give hundreds of thousands of dollars of horribly termed loans to your kid if they go to a local community school? That's killing profit, which is killing progress. You know that Ayn Rand promised the 1% would build the infrastructure for the people, because without healthy people, we have noone to exploit for our billions. Progress killer! Progress killer!