[metlcutr55]

ive been in the jobshop 30+ yrs. run anything from bridgeport to devlieg to cnc lathe & mill, shaper and gear cutter and more. not much of a grinder, but i can do it if i need to. ive made parts big as an office desk and small as a matchhead. never called myself a toolmaker, even though ive designed an built a bunch of fixtures and such. occasionally i get to meet fellas that say "im a toolmaker". some of them have been sharp folk that can figure 40:1 index heads on their own, do their own trig, machine cams, others have been (very) common machinists whos claim to toolmaker fame is they fuss over something 5x as much as needed and get little done. just thought this an interesting subject to discuss. what say you?

[Al_The_Man]

Traditionally they have been known as Tool & Die makers.
In the UK where I grew up, it usually required a 5yr apprenticeship.
Al.

[juergenwt]

Tool & Die Maker
To begin with 3 1/2 years as an apprentice and in many countries a final exam consisting of 24 hrs practical work, 2 days of theoretical testing and one day of verbal exam.. ----Than you start learning the trade. After 50 years you are still learning. Tools, Dies, Gages and all the rest. Tolerances of +/- 0.0001 - Up to you how you get there. Know your metals, know heat treating, math, trig, drawings etc. etc..Milling, turning, grinding (surface , ID and OD), Jig boring and Jig grinding. EDM work, CNC, tapping, honing, filing, scraping, forming, straightening. bending, sawing, measuring. drilling, reaming, broaching. soldering (hard and soft), swaging, forging and so on and on. I am sure somebody will add to it.

[Geof]

juergenwt covers it pretty well.

When I served my apprenticeship as a Fitter, Turner and Toolmaker, initially I was running machines making parts but then transitioned to making the tooling and fixtures for setting up turret and capstan lathes to be run by lathe operators. This was half a century ago so I didn't need to worry about CNC or EDM but I covered all the others, a lot of them at trade school which I had to attend one day every two weeks. Being a lazy SOB I tried to avoid the filing and scraping side of things.

[DareBee]

Interestingly - in Canada - a few years back - they have added "Toolmaker" as a new ticket. They felt tool and die was too broad, considering guys like me who have made precision tooling for many years and really don't do any die work.
I have had the "pleasure" of doing die build and sharpening and it is mostly it's own complete type of work.
Toolmaker OTOH is considered to be a high level machinist.
Kinda pissed me off when I was in tradeschool and guys going through for their T&D ticket did nothing but run a CNC lathe.

[Geof]

.....Toolmaker OTOH is considered to be a high level machinist....

Is this an acceptable list of definitions?

A Toolmaker can make all the parts and assemble something from scratch and in addition make all the tools, fixtures and gauges needed to make the parts and perform the assembly

A Machinist can make the parts and assemble things from scratch.

CNC Machinists can make parts of things from scratch. (This includes programming and setup.)

CNC Operators can setup and run CNC machines following programs and directions provided to them and may do some editing and/or offset adjustment.

CNC Parts Loaders load and reload CNC machines and may check parts with dedicated gauges; they do not edit/adjust anything on the machione.

[ctate2000]

You guys seemed to have covered the definition very well. I have an observation I would like to throw out for discussion.

It seems to me that the best Tool Makers were also the grumpiest bast@#$ds in the place. I say this with all due respect as I always seemed to fit in around them (I am a curmudgeon in training). Also, I have yet to meet a Tool Maker under the age of 100. Seems to me it is quickly becoming a lost ART.

[Geof]

...It seems to me that the best Tool Makers were also the grumpiest bast@#$ds in the place.....

Well that excludes me from the ranks of "best Tool Makers".

[cncprofessor]

I served an apprenticeship program back in Europe (1954-57) as a "Machinist/Toolmaker". At the end , I passed my "journeyman" level dploma/certificate.

After nearly 20 years on the shop floor (EU, CAN &USA), and parallel to that' and an additional 8 years of univ. schooling in the USA, a Ph.D. was added to my name. For many years now, on my business cards (under my name and an accademic degree) a "Journeymen Machinist/Toolmaker" is also shown.

Now, to many folks a title of a "Toolmaker" is somewhat confusing, but you can imagine the confusion every time I present my card to most folks in academia, and/or industry(!).

[ctate2000]

Geof,

No offense intended, everything was said in jest. If being grumpy makes a good Tool Maker then I would be the best ever. I am certainly not the best but I damn well may be the grumpiest.



CT

[Geof]

Geof,

No offense intended, everything was said in jest....
CT

Not offended at all; primarily amused because even though you might make a comment like that in jest it has a lot of truth to it. I have met, and learned from, my share of grumpy old coots in the past. One episode I remember clearly I was doing some assembly work one time and came to a step that had me a bit puzzled. Then I noticed out of the corner of my eye this old guy (to me he was old, I was only 26 at the time) who had stopped work and was watching me intently. I waited for about a minute then stalked over and said "come on you old git you have a secret way to do this otherwise you wouldn't be watching me". He laughed and told me the secret, actually it was a little custom tool he had made, and after that we got on fine.

[hutchison]

"the way we used to do it in the old place was... rant rant...." .

what i class as a toolmaker is someone that can make a hardened metal tool, be it with cnc, manual, or with his hands, from blank to finish, and has sufficient experience and skill to hit the correct size and quality, and for the tool to last long enough for the job in hand, that is essentially, making a tool.

is it definable even?, not according to a toolmaker!.. because you dont get them anymore

[Geof]

....is it definable even?, not according to a toolmaker!.. because you dont get them anymore

Sure it is; I make tools therefore I must be a Toolmaker.

[MadMax]

One skill that seems to be unique to all toolmakers is an ability to make primary reference surfaces without accurate heavy machinery. Methods for making highly accurate planar, perpendicular, or round reference features seem to be more concentrated in the craft of toolmaking than general machining.

Toolmakers also bleed a viscous blue blood which never dries which is used as contact pigment for indicating high or low surfaces for scraping.

Specific toolmakers also have particular knowledge and experience in their fields for predicting material flow for the initial design of deep draw dies or injection moulds. My injection mould maker takes some pretty well educated guesses in mould design to balance mould cavities so a whole part tree freezes up more or less at the same time. He also decides where to gate a part to reduce shrinkage based warp. He cuts high alloy steels, but has a good understanding of the behavior of liquified plastics. My in house toolmaker made deep draw dies for automotive industry. They took an educated guess at the die design then weld/ground in features to pull out wrinkles or fix a warp in a panel or ground down and reworked 50% of the worked surface to conform to the whims of bad corporate revision control.

To generalize, I'd say that general machinists tend to make parts rather than make machines that make parts. Toolmakers (sometimes tool breakers) make parts of machines and sometimes entire machines that are intended to repetitively make parts for machines that can also make parts (like a commercial rivet gun that sometimes makes elements of machines that make parts).

Myself, I'm an engineer who issues sporadic design revisions to ensure that general machinists and toolmakers maintain their air of grumpiness.

[DareBee]

Good one Max

I think a Toolmaker cert should be a requirement for all mech engineers as well.

Boy we get some doozies.

[Geof]

Good one Max

I think a Toolmaker cert should be a requirement for all mech engineers as well.

Boy we get some doozies.

I protest.

If this requirement was put in place there would be an obligation on existing Toolmakers to take part in teaching these engineers. I would rather push water uphill with a rope than try and push common sense into an engineering brain.

[DareBee]

LOL

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Geof, I object to that !!! Or maybe I resemble that. LOL

Dick Z

[hutchison]

Sure it is; I make tools therefore I must be a Toolmaker.

damn your good , 36 characters and and qualified , now where else could i read that. Gee i love this place, i'll be back tommorow for some more cutting edge technique.

[Geof]

damn your good ...

I know (shrug), my only failing is excessive modesty.