First day in the engineering fabrication shop

Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
5,395
Country flag
My normal job is managing large software teams.

I had my first minimum wage day in a long time today.

I was having some parts fabbed up by a guy who does a lot of custom fabrication, and a lot of it for vintage bikes. He was complaining that he was taking so long because he couldn't find anyone who wants to do that sort of work anymore, not even high school kids.

So, as I am working a half time contract I told him I could do a couple days work for him as long as I got to learn. I told him I could be a basically more reliable teenager.

My second task today was learning how to use the lathe.

In my spare time I finished my parts. LOL.
 
I would LOVE to apprentice at machine shop!!!!

But, at my age, it's not as appealing as it once was...
 
When my father first joined the Army Air Force they sent him on a search for a bucket of prop wash.

My first day as an oil field hand I got sent for the key to the Vee door.
 
My normal job is managing large software teams.

I had my first minimum wage day in a long time today.

I was having some parts fabbed up by a guy who does a lot of custom fabrication, and a lot of it for vintage bikes. He was complaining that he was taking so long because he couldn't find anyone who wants to do that sort of work anymore, not even high school kids.

So, as I am working a half time contract I told him I could do a couple days work for him as long as I got to learn. I told him I could be a basically more reliable teenager.

My second task today was learning how to use the lathe.

In my spare time I finished my parts. LOL.
Lathes and mills - good stuff. But I gotta say it, I have worked in factories my whole life and seen a couple of pretty bad incidents (we dont call them accidents anymore.) Make sure you get your PPE in place and never risk cutting corners on wearing it even one time and get good training. But I am sure you know that. I say this with the best intentions.
 
We had an apprentice working with us he wasn't a bad lad he still works in the trade although not with us
Anyway he'd been there a little while he knew how to change the punch tooling in the punch machine and he was getting on fine with the mild steel work
Then we had some stainless steel plate to punch
I told him you'll need a hardened punch for that coz it's stainless (now he knew stainless was harder to drill so it seemed logical to him) so I said go and ask Dennis (the boss)just ask if he has a hard punch
And he did it, Dennis turned around in the chair and punched him square in the stomach!!!!! We were crying!!
He came out of that office red faced, wouldn't talk to us lot for the rest of the day
In the end, some weeks later he laughed about it
Funny as anything!!!!
 
We had an apprentice working with us he wasn't a bad lad he still works in the trade although not with us
Anyway he'd been there a little while he knew how to change the punch tooling in the punch machine and he was getting on fine with the mild steel work
Then we had some stainless steel plate to punch
I told him you'll need a hardened punch for that coz it's stainless (now he knew stainless was harder to drill so it seemed logical to him) so I said go and ask Dennis (the boss)just ask if he has a hard punch
And he did it, Dennis turned around in the chair and punched him square in the stomach!!!!! We were crying!!
He came out of that office red faced, wouldn't talk to us lot for the rest of the day
In the end, some weeks later he laughed about it
Funny as anything!!!!
“Go and ask Dennis if he has a hard punch” ... I can just picture that... love it... so much I covered my I pad with tea !
 
“Go and ask Dennis if he has a hard punch” ... I can just picture that... love it... so much I covered my I pad with tea !
You had to see it
Three of us ran to the stores to watch through a wired glass window into the office
The lad became one of us after a short while
I had similar done to me it was the right of passage although all of that is in the past now
We don't have 16 year olds training anymore anyway the minimum age is 18 to be allowed to touch a power tool
Plus you'd end up on some sort of charge nowadays with the stuff we did
 
I have been scouring my local craigslist looking to replace the south bend lathe I gave away to a friend when I moved out west... But the truth is,....

1) I don't have the training or experience to know what I'm doing, nor do I have the network of tradesman friends around me, from where I operated my business for 20+ years to have an experienced advisor...

2) With the amount I would use the tools, it would be cheaper to just pay an experienced, skilled machinist to do the occasional work I need... (and he wouldn't make mistakes like I probably would)

When I need machine work I call this retired boeing machinist "The great Seymour" who has all the tools and experience. He's not cheap, and kind of mocks me when I bring stuff to him because he knows that I admire his skills. He would never do my work while I was waiting there. He would always make me drop it off and come back. I assumed he did it pretty quickly and didn't want me to complain about the price. Eventually, after I payed him for a few jobs, and also said that I was also a skilled tradesman and I was paying him for his skill as much as his time, he finally let me hang out while he cut down my rear hub's sprocket carrier... then took pity on me and only charged me $75. ( I had just paid him $375 for a bracket I was picking up that day)

Cool guy, a little cantankerous and biker as well. He's gotta be 80 years old now... He would have been a good guy to learn from, but he wasn't the "teacher" type nor much interested in my questions...
 
Missed this freebie on a FB local group by a half hr yesterday.

1607558614801.png
 
I have been scouring my local craigslist looking to replace the south bend lathe I gave away to a friend when I moved out west... But the truth is,....

1) I don't have the training or experience to know what I'm doing, nor do I have the network of tradesman friends around me, from where I operated my business for 20+ years to have an experienced advisor...

2) With the amount I would use the tools, it would be cheaper to just pay an experienced, skilled machinist to do the occasional work I need... (and he wouldn't make mistakes like I probably would)

When I need machine work I call this retired boeing machinist "The great Seymour" who has all the tools and experience. He's not cheap, and kind of mocks me when I bring stuff to him because he knows that I admire his skills. He would never do my work while I was waiting there. He would always make me drop it off and come back. I assumed he did it pretty quickly and didn't want me to complain about the price. Eventually, after I payed him for a few jobs, and also said that I was also a skilled tradesman and I was paying him for his skill as much as his time, he finally let me hang out while he cut down my rear hub's sprocket carrier... then took pity on me and only charged me $75. ( I had just paid him $375 for a bracket I was picking up that day)

Cool guy, a little cantankerous and biker as well. He's gotta be 80 years old now... He would have been a good guy to learn from, but he wasn't the "teacher" type nor much interested in my questions...
He sounds like fun, I've known a few people like that
The guy that trained me was an ex ww2 RAF airframe fitter
Not once did he utter the words "that's close enough" or "that'll do" if it wasn't perfect it went in the bin
If we weren't busy he would bend metal and get you to straighten it
You had to make a jig for everything
If you said you were cold he made you run around the bench to warm up
A highly skilled man he could make / repair anything
I saw him get in a fight with another fitter they were both in their 60s then!!
 
I was lucky in 82 I got a job at a TEC College (TAFE) 5 minutes from home as a cleaner (was in my early 20s at the time) and at night I was doing a few TEC courses (welding and machining courses) and after some time I became the steel cutter for all the welding and machining classes and with in a years it all paid off and became a TA to the Maintenance fitters, in the mornings before classes started I did all the checks on all the machines in the machine shops and during the day any other maintenance and repairs that was needed, I have a great tradesman who was a very good teacher and I learned a lot, most machine jobs were done by me, but I enjoyed that as I learned the right way of doing things, I was the TA for 15 years then they decided to close the machine shops down and send the course to another TEC College and our maintenance workshop closed down, I then became a general hand and truck driver for the rest of the time I was employed there (31 years all up) over the time in the machine shops we had access to one of the best tool store around with the best tooling that could be had.
Over the years I built up my own tools for home that I borrowed ;) and 7 years ago the GOV at the time decided to make our jobs redundant and so I took a redundancy at 55 and a good pay out and now living on my supa pension, with some of my pay out I brought a small lathe and milling machine and lucky had most of the tooling for the machines, my lathe is good for my needs but any bigger jobs I have friends who have bigger lathe but don't know how to use them or maintain them, my milling machine was cheap but don't have auto feed so I might be upgrading it soon but I hardly have used it but I have my Manxman caferacer project starting back up in the new year, so both machines will get a good workout for sure, my workshop is now well set up for any jobs or projects that I am sure will come along.
I built me Commando/Featherbed back in the early 80s with just the bare tools at home, but the thing when working at the TEC College and the right people lot my build was done at the college, we did more home jobs than work jobs when in the maintenance workshop as long as our daily jobs were all done, we also had a good Motorcycle workshop for classes and some very good teachers, two teachers one was a pit crew member of a Norton race team when he was back home in NZ and the other rode British motorcycles back in the 60 and 70s till he had a major accident and had damaged his leg, but he knew everything about British motorcycles.

Ashley
 
That's awesome! There is a machinist that I use just south of Baltimore. Older guy, probably in his early 80s now, who has done work on my BSA crank and cases (from what I understand he's machined Brit iron since the 60s so I trust him). He once took me into his attic where he had probably 10 Commando frames hanging up on a wall. There were shelves behind us that he said contained every part to build each of those Commandos again. It takes me over an hour to get there, but if he were closer I'd certainly volunteer in his shop to learn a thing or two!
 
Back
Top