At what point are you considered a "Machinist"?

[silverhawk]

I've been giggling for a while with the following questions because of this discussion, and I've held back.

Do I have to be good at sex to become a sexist? Or do I need to become a professional for that to happen? Maybe a government certification is required?

Sent from my SM-T500 using Tapatalk

 

[matthewsx]

My dad was an engineer. Completed the education, knew all the math, worked on everything from rocket engines to nuclear power plants. Eventually ended up as project manager and even had his own small business writing software for same.

When I wanted to take the machine tool tech course in high school he said no, since he was a chemical engineer I had to take chemistry instead. It took me many years to understand exactly why he stopped me going on that path.

As others have said “machinist” is a job title. One who’s truly skilled as such should probably be a tool and die maker but that’s not for me to say.

Today I work with some folks whose title is engineer that I wouldn’t trust to fix a bicycle. Others who should be building rockets.

Each of us goes down a path and largely what we get out of life is directly related to what we put in.

John

 

[David2011]

How can a draftsman be distinguished from a designer?
Let's make a hypothesis: if you can't draw at all (hand drawn or computer drawn), but you can draw and communicate with the draftsman to give you a very creative drawing according to your requirements, you can define as a designer?
Please forgive my question, because it has confused me for a long time!

When I worked for a land surveyor I was a draftsman. I translated latitude and longitude points or compass degrees and distances to drawings on paper. (I know, it was a LONG time ago.) There was no design involved.

When I design a part to machine or design a model airplane, I am both designer and draftsman. What does it make me when I make drawings of existing parts to reproduce copies? I'm not sure but I think there is a little design element still there because the manufacturing processes in my home shop are not the same as those used to make the original parts over 100 years ago. When the Department of the Navy had something made, it was usually in large quantities so the manufacturers could economically build fixturing for work holding. When I'm only making one or two of something it's not economical in either time or materials to build fixtures unless there is no other way.

 

[David2011]

Just curious because I have no idea. I've never been inside a union machine shop. The shops I used to visit were all small mom-and-pop operations run by grizzled older guys. Is the apprentice to journeyman path only within the trade unions or is it something practiced outside of unions?

 

[mmcmdl]

Just curious because I have no idea. I've never been inside a union machine shop. The shops I used to visit were all small mom-and-pop operations run by grizzled older guys. Is the apprentice to journeyman path only within the trade unions or is it something practiced outside of unions?

Apprenticeships are a thing of the past , haven't seen any available in this area in years . Any union shop you must have served your time already , which really makes no sense . The community colleges have MTT courses still , but no machines , I guess for liability reasons .

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Just curious because I have no idea. I've never been inside a union machine shop. The shops I used to visit were all small mom-and-pop operations run by grizzled older guys. Is the apprentice to journeyman path only within the trade unions or is it something practiced outside of unions?

Ive seen it both inside and out.

I served mine in a union shop attached to a large production facility and for me it was good and bad.

Good as I was only bound to the same rules as everyone else in the plant, and at times I might not have made it if it were a traditional shop.

Bad as some of the elitist snobs I apprenticed under constantly gave me ****, as somehow with their great expansive knowledge of all things worldly, could somehow tell me I would have never made it in the shops they apprenticed under.

They really didn't like it when I pointed out they had to do their apprenticeships in bits and pieces in different shops as they got fired a couple times.

These guys thought they were hurting me, but in reality they were only making me stronger as an individual.

The reality of apprenticing in a job shop type environment is you will likely fail a few times before you even learn enough to become a decent apprentice. If the shop is operating marginally they will want you up to speed in 6 months and work you like a dog until your proficient, then continue to work you like a dog until youre good enough that you can leave to go to another shop.

If it is a good profitable shop that wants to build you up to becoming a ....whatever, you will likely go through phases.

You would start out for 6 months sweeping floors and being a gofer just to see if you can show up on time and keep your fingers out of the works. Then you will spend 6 months on the bandsaw cutting stock to size, then 6 months on the drill press drilling holes where they tell you, and on and on until you can do most shop functions on your own.

At this point (2nd-3rd year) you will likely be handed the most god awful set of prints you could imagine (This may happen more than once) just so the shop owner can gauge your progress.

Sometimes tuition is repaid after you progress through the different semesters, and some shops make you pay this yourself.

 

[David2011]

Oh. I've been under the impression for most of my life that unions brought up people through the professions and trained them along the way. The college where I taught gunsmithing, just a 6 hour/week job, had machines and taught machining classes but it was an adult continuing education center and not a long term program. Unfortunately that program has since been dropped. Their manufacturing certification course includes one semester of basic machine shop and one semester of CNC machining center operation each comprising of 2 lecture hours and 4 shop hours per week.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Apprenticeships are a thing of the past , haven't seen any available in this area in years . Any union shop you must have served your time already , which really makes no sense . The community colleges have MTT courses still , but no machines , I guess for liability reasons .

We still offer one supposedly, but I don't see it working out with our current staffing.

Our last two batches of apprentices went through the program and had brand new machines in the shop. That they couldn't use as the electrical apprentices hadn't yet gained their certs to hook the machines up!

Our place cant hire Toolmakers as our pay scale sucks. Guys make similar money just loading parts onto a tombstone and pushing a button while not even looking up from their phone.

The union asked me to become head of the skilled trades committee to show the company why they couldn't hire, and after two months of leg work on a 4 person committee, they wouldn't meet with us to go over our findings. We had 6 toolmakers at that time and now were down to 2.5, 2 with papers and a third with a good enough set of hands.

Now they want to restart the apprenticeship program with basically one person (Me) that has earned their papers in a traditional apprenticeship, another person who is really good at running the EDM, but got short changed on her apprenticeship, and a guy who has been a welder most of his career.

Both of the other two are excellent workers and between the three of us we do OK, but to teach someone a well rounded skillset that they could take forward and earn a living with?

I don't know if Id feel comfortable with being part of that situation.

Total ****show.

 

[David2011]

Ive seen it both inside and out.

I served mine in a union shop attached to a large production facility and for me it was good and bad.

Good as I was only bound to the same rules as everyone else in the plant, and at times I might not have made it if it were a traditional shop.

Bad as some of the elitist snobs I apprenticed under constantly gave me ****, as somehow with their great expansive knowledge of all things worldly, could somehow tell me I would have never made it in the shops they apprenticed under.

They really didn't like it when I pointed out they had to do their apprenticeships in bits and pieces in different shops as they got fired a couple times.

These guys thought they were hurting me, but in reality they were only making me stronger as an individual.

The reality of apprenticing in a job shop type environment is you will likely fail a few times before you even learn enough to become a decent apprentice. If the shop is operating marginally they will want you up to speed in 6 months and work you like a dog until your proficient, then continue to work you like a dog until youre good enough that you can leave to go to another shop.

If it is a good profitable shop that wants to build you up to becoming a ....whatever, you will likely go through phases.

You would start out for 6 months sweeping floors and being a gofer just to see if you can show up on time and keep your fingers out of the works. Then you will spend 6 months on the bandsaw cutting stock to size, then 6 months on the drill press drilling holes where they tell you, and on and on until you can do most shop functions on your own.

At this point 92nd-3rd year) you will likely be handed the most god awful set of prints you could imagine (This may happen more than once) just so the shop owner can gauge your progress.

Sometimes tuition is repaid after you progress through the different semesters, and some shops make you pay this yourself.

Sounds like a lot of industries where the employees are run into the ground. I've worked with people that guarded all of their knowledge, unwilling to share the simplest bits that would make a task turn out better. Never understood that.

The only manufacturing facility I have toured was STI Guns in Georgetown, TX (now Staccato) and virtually everything there was done in CNC machining centers. Beyond the CNC, the rest was hand fitting of competition pistols. It's a very nice facility. Other than that, I've only been in job shops. One shop I visited in New Mexico's oil country was remarkably clean. The owner told me that he had one employee whose only job was to keep the machines and shop clean. There wasn't a stray chip to be seen anywhere.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Oh. I've been under the impression for most of my life that unions brought up people through the professions and trained them along the way. The college where I taught gunsmithing, just a 6 hour/week job, had machines and taught machining classes but it was an adult continuing education center and not a long term program. Unfortunately that program has since been dropped. Their manufacturing certification course includes one semester of basic machine shop and one semester of CNC machining center operation each comprising of 2 lecture hours and 4 shop hours per week.

We had similar classes, but many more and a lot more varied.

Drafting/blueprint reading, Shop math, Trig, shop theory, almost an entire semester on grinding and metallurgy. We really only had one semester with actual shop work and that was in our third year and we knew most of what was taught already.

We needed 2200hrs per year of actual work time to go along with the 8 semesters of class time.