[Sergio Gar]

I was trained by the military, 6 mo course, that was job afterwards.

[wawatobi]

I wouldn't call myself a machinist but I spend several hours every day working with a milling machine and make the bulk of my living from the machine. I'm a goldsmith. I'm also self taught.

[deji]

Far from a machinist. But, learning a bit in school. Been reading quite a bit lately too. Very addicting stuff. So much to learn.

Some really cool stories in this thread.

[Mazaholic]

Started working in a hydraulics manufacturing plant after graduation from HS.
Spent a few years running manual machines then moved to NCs.
Started working in a job shop and was fortunate enough to have a boss that was a wizard with CNCs and he started me into programing.
Became a programer and setup man for my current employer then moved to maintenance.

[cncraider]

90 percent On the job 10 percent NTMA classes

[billg22]

i got a job right after high school as a button pusher..and worked my way up to be a set-up/operator,ive been in the trade for 4yrs and love it.(flame2)

[BZER1]

Growing up in Texas, my grandfather owned his own tool & die company and when I was about nine years old I began running a Bridgeport mill! During the summer months I was the shop helper. When my father took over the business
I was required to go through a four year apprenticeship and being the owners son made it just the more difficult to meet those standards. By the time I was seventeen I had my fill and decided to join the USMC.

After getting shot down in Vietnam it ac cured to me that I really did need to get back to work for DAD. After mustering out I returned home and picked up where I left off.
Dad had all but retired but still did tooling work for AMF Ben Hogan. He still had two Bridgeport series 1's with all the accessories you can name. He had a 15" colchester lathe tooled up and a little furnace, welder, surface grinder saws etc. I went back to school and studied to become an mechanical engineer. While attending school I began to discover CNC technology and that was all it took. By 1978 we had 63 machines 14 of which were CNC. We took on a partner who was another one of my mentors. Harry Logsdon had retired as the chief pilot of central airlines and he was instrumental in teaching me the business world! So anyway, I have made sure that the time honored way of passing on the trade as mentor coach and instructor still happens at every opportunity. I have a new venture with a new student, He's just a button pusher but he will be damed good by the time I get through with him.

It is still one of the most demanding but wonderful skills anyone can undertake.

Here's to all that have past and all who will come!!!!

Jim Salter

General Machinist

OUTSTANDING!!! I always admire a man who is willing to put in the time and effort it takes to pass along such a valuable skill. I didn't have a mentor when I became a mechanic, so it was a lot more difficult to learn the trade. Without the benefit of a mentor I developed a few bad habits that took some time to shake. :cheers:

[AMCjeepCJ]

My great grandpa owned a junk yard, (amongst many other things) and at some point was a machinist. His oldest boy, my Grandpa grew up around the junk yard and when he graduated he built a car / camper from scrap in his dads junk heap and went out west exploring for a month in this homemade contraption, (if I can find the pics I'll post them.) It topped out at 25mph and if I'm not mistaken they drove it 3 or 4 thousand miles on that trip without a hiccup but once they returned home Grandpa decided to run the store the next day and it caught fire and burned to the ground, lol...

After that he and his brother in law worked at a local manufacturing company before deciding to start up a business to build hydraulic presses. After a few years they added on to the shop and changed over to military and civilian aircraft parts.

My dad was quite literally born in the shop in 1951, ironically his room is right where my new 22x40 vmc sits today. Needless to say my dad and his brother grew up to be machinists and independently started their own successful companies in the mold trade. If you count my Grandpa, his two boys, and seven grandsons only two do not own their own shops although one is a foreman for a big Japanese plant and the other one quit being a machinist altogether because of the stress and makes cardboard boxes now.

As for me, I learned mostly from my dad on the job but by this time he had sold his half of a successful big shop and it was just the two of us. (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!) I quit for a couple of years to go to Bible school to become a pastor and ended up being a cnc lathe guy in Tulsa to pay my bills.

Honestly I thought I was done in this line of work until I was half paralyzed by a massive stroke 2 weeks after my 27th birthday. As luck would have it I couldn't get a job running machinery so I started my own shop to make some money. It was a slow start but once I had a few good customers my dad cosigned a loan for a new vmc and the rest is history.

As far as my training goes I definitely learned the fundamentals from my family but I've taken it quite a few steps further through constant reading and studying. I don't think you could ever peak as a cnc operator programmer without a deep understanding of manual machining. It's like reading about someone verses getting to spend time with them, you get such a deeper understanding when you have experienced the fundamentals.

As far as losing knowledge from the old guys, heck yes you lose it!! When my Grandpa died four years ago, we cleaned out his shop and found a box of parts they used to do production runs of. Most of them were straight forward but one part in particular we cannot figure out how he made it on manual equipment. Honestly, we still haven't figured out how to replicate it efficiently on cnc's! One of the parts is in the first airplane to fly around the world without refueling on display at the Smithsonian.

I know what kind of equipment he had to work with and for it's time they were high quality units (but the weird I'd call them B-splines,) he cut into those military parts soooo smooth baffles me. I just wish I could go back and take a walk through the shop (his garage then,) with him a few days before he was killed. I would love to know how they pulled off those amazing parts~

So yeah, every old timer that bites the dust is taking away a lot more than we'll ever know. It's too bad that Grandpa's generation as a whole isn't online to share their knowledge...

[[email protected]]

Still learning the best I can.
Regards Walt.

[pntbllrsprky]

I would say my skills are very basic. I learned pretty much everything in machine shop in school (a class I almost took again this coming year, but I need credits, since I already took it I had to skip out)

My instructions: here take this block of aluminum and make this, as teacher gives me a sheet with 2 metal dice on it with all the specs. All he told me was endmill for the ends and fly cutter for the sides. Minor assistance with the DRO and told me to make sure to keep the part oiled. That was the mill.

For the Lathe.
Teacher: Take this tin can of aluminum (we have a foundry) and make this *me handed another sheet with a step thing made out of round stock* Also gave me a piece of steel to practice making a cutting bit and then a HSS to make the real one.

I also did some welding in the class (very little) and some sheet metal (I was too good at it, and it got boring). I also did some repair projects in the class.

I do some machining still at work on our knee mill and lathe.

I hope to buy some machinery of my own soon, just a small lathe and mill and learn some more.

[dannystooblue]

It's amazing how many "Self Taught" machinists there are !

Eric

I think that even for the guys that are proclaimed self taught there are probably a group of very talented machinists that have shared a lot of knowledge with them. I started in trade school in high school, then off to the shop to study real world, then to another shop to see some more world and so on. Early on I would change jobs every 12 to 18 months (I was somewhat immature I think at the time), but it gave me the ability to learn from so many different people so many different things. It seems that shops sometimes get stuck in a rut of only working on or going looking for certain types of work. I remember one place all I did was lathe work, one I learned a little about fabrication, production, and and mechanical workings of custom machinery. I would recommend that anyone early in the trade that they embrace the help of the seasoned machinist in the shop and put their own pride aside long enough to learn something new.

[spunky1974]

Started as a very small kid building dirt track race cars. Later, I had to build alot of specialty equipment for my other trades......I do them ALL. Yes, I said ALL. Anyway, after making everybody else money....and not me, I said screw all of "you" meaning my bosses and came home. So, now I tinker at home. I thought about going to work in another shop but most shop owners around here are "PRICKS". Yes, I said "PRICKS" meaning they would rather hire unqualified help....So, I'm going to keep the learning curve going at home.

[warfreak]

NTMA,
8 months pre-employement training. then they sent me to work @ $8 an hour, employer sent me back to NTMA for cnc programming 1 & 2, then I went back for mastercam 1 & 2.
now I make 3 times that.
Thanks NTMA.

Hey i went to NTMA also ..... just graduate feb 07 lol whats up fellow alumni!???:wave:

[JROM]

Four year state apprenticship
When us old f-rts are gone it's back to sticks and stones. I was lucky to have 5 good toolmakers who shared their tricks and skills with me. I've only seen a few young guys in the last 15 years who where willing to dig in and learn the trade. Most of them want my job and my money and don't have any understanding of what it took to get here! Years of work and many different shops building everything from stamping dies to race cars. It really worries me about the fate of our country when no one is learning the basic stuff about how things work and how to build them. I mean Jeeze "sharpening a drill for gods sake" pages and pages of old guys trying to explane how to sharpen a drill...............makes me sad!

[Twisted]

Depends which bit really, was trained as Hydralic engineer with machining as a sideline, now the machining has taken over and hydralics left by the wayside except when bleeding brakes.

Still don't do CNC much I prefer to "do it by hand" as it keeps me fit.

By the way I'm now Toolmaker, modelmaker, machinist fitter for G.E. and motorcycle mechanic/fitter for myself and friends

[Chief-Yeah]

I learned on the job at a high temp ceramics manufacturing company.I was supervisor of the engineered products dept. and was responible for building custom industrial furnaces as well a custom mold maker.I have ten years experience as prog/oper of a bridgeport knee mill and three years experience on multicam cnc routers.I worked there a total of 18yrs before becoming disabled with a back injury.

[machmngr]

Just starting out. I am starting in the trade after 10 years in a different industry. What's the best way to start learning Lathe and Mills? Technical school, reading books,

Any advice?

[M0NKEY2TO2]

There are a thousand ways to skin a cat. You can read in books, and sit through classes for years, but it will never be as good as getting on a mill or lathe and making something. Start with small things, and work yourself to more busy parts as you get better.

[tobyaxis]

I would say that this is a good method to get experience in this trade seeing that apprenticeships aren't as available as they used to be.

[tattoomike68]

I went a Vocational Tech School, it showed me the basics anyway. Once out in the real world I got the real education.