I was fortunate enough to apprentice in my current profession with a REAL MACHINIST.
A man who has passed on by now...William McCarty
He learned his craft serving our country in WWII as a ordinance technician in the Army Air Corps. he built and serviced bomb fusing mechanisms on live ordinance. as you could imagine he was very sure of his every movement.
I used to joke with him that we (him and i) were not building bombs anymore, and it could be a 64th off and still be ok.
he would not have any part of that thought process and continue to make things to the gnats @ss whether it was gonna explode or not. i learned a lot of my seeking precision from him and his thought processes, nothing seemed to be straight, square, perpendicular , or plumb enough for his approval. everything i did was wrong and he had no qualms about pointing out any imperfection. he first would pick out the imperfection ask me if i saw the imperfection, then proceed to explain how to correct the situation and bird dog me until it was to his satisfaction. one of my very first assignments under him was to sharpen every one of the shops drill bits without the use of any guiding aid. he explained the process, showed me the process, let me wreck about 4 dozen bits before the light came on in my head. he would then grab his favorite block of aluminum and tested each and every bit to make sure both sides were cutting equally.
that was about 17 years ago, i still sharpen every bit by hand to this day, big or small.
mike
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