Going To School To Be A Machinist

D

dweed1531

Registered
Registered
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
10
I wasn't to sure where to post this. So if it needs to be moved else where or posted else where. I will repost it somewhere else.

As the title says. I am going to school to be a machinist. I really am enjoying it and learning a lot of great things like how to trig out a 5 or 9 or 13 hole pattern in a circle. How to read blueprints and so on.

This is the first year of the program. So far it is struggling with working laths and mills. As I am sure most starting programs do. We have 2 safe working mills and 3 safe working lathes for 10 students. The rest either are tagged out or not safe to operate.

Why I am posting is just to see if anyone knows or can point me in the direction to talk to about getting a donation or grant or something to purchase safer working machines.

My teacher is meeting with local companies and has been talking to the dean daily. I think in 3 to 5 years it will be a great 2 maybe eventually a 4 year program. I am just worried the program won't make it past infancy and would like to do what I think I can do to help.

If anyone can send any possible info please do so.

Thank you,

Future Career Machinist
 
Welcome to the forum and trade! It's a shame most high schools have dropped shop classes, it was a cheap and easy way to get introduced to the profession. I hope your program catches on and we get another generation of hands on guys and gals out there. I looked at the machinist curriculum for our local community college. Little bit of math, little bit of layout/GD&T, little bit of welding, little bit of manual machine tool work, and lots of CNC work. Good to hear you're starting with the basic machines for a good foundation. I still single point thread instead of running a tap or die once in a while just to refresh myself on the process. Memory isn't what it used to be.

Bruce
 
Absolutely, if this was something I could of learned in high school. I would be a Machinist 10 years ago.
 
Welcome to HM!!
When I was taking some manual machine classes this was a great place to ask questions.
Answers on how to tackle a set up problem were sometimes different than my Instructors suggestions. My Instructors also applauded the idea that there were usually multiple safe and effective ways to solve a problem.

In addition to seeking new or donated machines an additional option might be repair of out of service machines.
Sometimes the fixes are huge and expensive. Other times they just need a tweak.
There may be a machine tool rebuilder in your area who might donate or discount services. Perhaps in trade for an out of service machine.
If you have missing or broken parts, then perhaps your Instructor might allow parts fab as a substitute for other projects as long as the learning objectives were similar.
Moreover, I'd suggest that understanding machine tool geometry will help with inspection skills.

Daryl
MN
 
My thinking is kind of along the same line as what Daryl said. What's wrong with those "unsafe" machines ? If they're repairable, ask your instructor if you (and maybe some of your fellow students) can earn some extra credit for getting them back into service. It would be a great learning experience and maybe help out the school as well. There are a few of the You Tube machinists that do some "volunteer" type machining projects that may be willing to help out. Check out Kieth Fenner, Oxtool, Abom, Tubalcain, etc. on You Tube.

Ted
 
So this sounds like a technical college or something of that nature? I have a couple ideas; first off if you have machines that are there but not working, the least expensive way to get more machines might be to fix what you have. I trained as a machine tool repairman and rebuilder and actually repaired some of the machines that had been inoperative at the school I went to for years. Often times the problems are simple it just takes someone who is able to diagnose and repair the problem. I may even be able and willing to donate some time to help if this would help get some things on line for your school. The next thing is to get any local employers who might benefit from hiring some employees from the school to help out, again a $2000.00 repair would be much easier to sell than a $135,000.00 machine. Lastly your state should have something like a department of workforce development that helps get people who have been displaced from jobs trained to do new ones. There is a large amount of federal funding available to programs like this; locally here we have a lot of fabrication shops so they do "welding boot camps" where they take interested people and run them through an intensive (like all day 5 days a week) training program that meets the needs of the local employers. Showing a need and a solution works great with these type of programs because it leaves them nothing to do but provide funding and the required red tape and paperwork. Please let me know what type of machines you have that are not working and an idea of what might be wrong/whats not working on them. I think the easiest thing to do would be to get them running and at least get you guys some more equipment to learn on. I think most would agree machining is hard to learn from a book. There is the math and drafting and those sorts of things but one must make some chips, break some tools and cut some threads to learn to run a lathe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top