How it all got started

It's time for a bit of nostalgia; please indulge me.

I attended high school '55-'59, back when they still had shop classes. Wood shop was an annoyance but in sophomore year we took metal shop. After making a folded metal dust pan and forging the obligatory cold chisel, we could select a project of our own to make.

My Dad had a wood lathe at home. It was a strange Sears Craftsman item from the 40's that came with a compound rest that could be clamped to the ways to provide a rudimentary (and totally unsatisfactory) metal-cutting capability. I had made numerous attempts to make small metal items but never really produced anything satisfactory.

So, when I saw all those gleaming, REAL metal lathes in the high school shop, it was love at first sight and I knew my project would have to be something made on the lathe.

I found a rough sketch of a pin vise in one of my ship modeling books and from it, "designed" what I was going to make. The shop teacher liked the project and gave me permission to make it, offering to help me with some of the more complex operations, e.g. single-point threading.

By the end of that school year I had, with his help, produced this...

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/f...e/109052-1.jpg

and had become totally infatuated with making stuff with machine tools. The teacher liked it enough to include it in the end-of-term display for visiting parents. It was supposed to have a turned wooden handle; hence the pivot at the top and the collar to retain it in the handle. Girls and cars intervened and it never got made. I prefer it the way it is.

Now, as pin vises go, it's really pretty terrible...

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/f...e/109052-2.jpg

It's too chunky, that 3/8-16 thread is way too coarse for a pin vise, and the chuck is too heavy. The hand-sawn slots in the reversible collet should have been done on a mill and the knurling is uniformly imperfect. Still, with all its flaws, it will always have a spot in the Gerstner tool chest; a fond reminder of how I became involved with precision metalworking.

Awesome post thank you for taking the time to share it with us!!

Hi Marv,
Thanks for this piece of life, and I must say it reminds me of my personal life.
I also discovered the lathe (and mill, but was always more fascinated by the lathe) at high school, and also had shop classes at that time where I learned almost everything. It reminds me also of one of my professors who was also a passionate, restoring old cars, and we could spend hours with him, after the work, in the shop....
I don't know how it is now on your side of the Atlantic, but here, they almost have given up the shop time in High school...
Now it's my son who is doing the same kind of studies as I did 35 years ago, but they do not learn anymore any machining skill.
Fortunately, I have my personal shop and can teach him and some of his friends some things ...

Now, these schools and teachers only deal with the "sacred" 3D printer, I really think this is a mistake. If at least is was to build the printer ... but no, they purchase it ...

Hi Marv

Like Christophe, my life was so similar. I was so enamored with ALL the metalwork machinery, including the shaper :D

I started on these machines at school, age 12 and was able to continue machining during my apprenticeship.

I also made the "dustpan", but the most useful thing I made back then was a tension/torque wrench like this...

Attachment 22801

Still have the passion (and finally some machines) after 57 years!

Regards

Peter

<!-- BEGIN /var/www/html/homemadetools/protected/modules/zeus/views/tool/postUpdate.php -->
Thanks mklotz! We've added your Pin Vise to our Vises category,
as well as to your builder page: mklotz's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-pin-vise-6"> <img src="/uploads/211819/homemade-pin-vise-6.jpeg"/> </a> </div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-pin-vise-6">Pin Vise</a> <span> by <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/builder/mklotz">mklotz</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href='http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/vise'>vise</a> </div> </div> </div> </div>
<!-- END /var/www/html/homemadetools/protected/modules/zeus/views/tool/postUpdate.php -->

Hi Marv

Really nice post
Got me thinking about how I got in to engineer.

I am know 50 and again like most my first encounter with the lathe and mill was at school. Unfortunately, as I was in the bottom group for most subjects I was, considered not bright enough to use the machines in the shop. So hand tools it was for me.

My Parents were so helpful and I owe so much to them as they paid for practical model engineering evening classes at our local college. I tried to get an apprenticeship but did not have the skills to pass the written tests.

One day my Dad took me to an engineering works, which also had an apprentice school attached to it. I could not believe my luck that day one of the apprentices was fired (not sure why) and straight away they said can you start Monday no interview that I can remember just form filling. I did struggle with the college side of things but fully engaged with the practical stuff. I decided that one day I wanted to be an apprentice instructor.

I then gave up the practical evening classes and 15 years later, I decided to go back to college and study to gain my ONC and HNC in mechanical engineer.
While doing this study the Head of the Engineering department called me up to his office and asked if I could stand in for a teacher in the evening practical model engineering session. When I arrived to take the class all the previous students and some new ones were still taking part in these sessions that I had met when I was 16. I was very lucky that they wanted me to stay as the instructor and did so for 10 years. During this time and with this teaching experience I was able to achieve my goal and became an apprentice instructor for 5 years.

During my time as an instructor, there was lots of teacher training and again I struggled with the written work. I was asked by the college to go for a dyslexia test and no surprise it was found I have server dyslexia.

I still teach once a month to the students from the college practical model engineering class and still love everything about engineering.

I guess the reason for writing this is to say “anything is possible with the correct encouragement and support”.

Please forgive me for the long post and if you did get this far down the page thank you for taking the time to read.

The Home Engineer

I remember those days, good ol days

Marv, I think the pin vice turned out just fine. While you may feel your first knurling attempt may have turned out less than perfect it looks just fine to me. the hand sawed serve their purpose which is in the end is all that matters.
As most already know how it started for me was when I was 11 I started hanging around a blacksmith shop which led to my apprenticeship. I would venture to say my first tool build that I can remember was probably a pair of tongs. I had to be pretty much autodidact when it came to learning to run a lathe since I bought my own while working at the blacksmith shop and no one there had ever even been around one prior to me getting mine. My fondest early years build would be my small tractor
This is a small tractor that I built when I was 14 I had been working at the blacksmith shop for about 3 or 4 years and decided I needed a small tractor around the farm
Attachment 22807
A little tractor I built when I was 14,one-my-early-builds
The tractor has an old lambretta scooter engine I had cut off the right angle drive for the rear wheel at the back of the transmission then made a short shaft to connect the trans to a 4 speed transmission off of a 12 HP Western Auto rider mower then put 2 sprockets in the rear transmission back to the axle where I mounted 2 sprockets as idlers with a dog clutch between them this gave me 3 x 4 x 2 for a total of 24 forward speeds and 6 reverse top speed was around 20 MPH which could easily keep up with the larger Molines and big John Deers' we had
the small trailer you see in the front I made for my dad's riding lawn mower I even made a 1" ball hitch for it by using an old truck tie rod end

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christophe Mineau

I don't know how it is now on your side of the Atlantic, but here, they almost have given up the shop time in High school....

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Hi Christophe
The education system is similar in the UK, it is now left to going to a trade school for those who do not achieve the exam grades.
I spent my early years obsessed with Mechano and would spend the whole evening with it spread out over the living room floor until bedtime (no TV in those days).
It taught me about gears and pulleys but above all patience and a sense of achievement and in my youth I progressed to model making, my bedroom would always smell of balsa cement and paint.
Today it does not seem very cool to get your hands grubby but maybe they have got it right as everything has to move on, if I had had a crystal ball I do not know if I would have chosen to spend most of my working life in the equivalent of a cow shed for average wages.
Gave it up for the last 10 years to go self employed renovating houses.

Marv and all,

I appreciate seeing stories and how you became enamored with metalworking and tools in general. One of my regrets was not taking advantage any wood or metal shop classes while in high school in the 1960's.

Instead I have become self-taught starting with simple cabinetmaking for my parents' house by age ten (inspired by age eight after seeing the cabinetmakers at Colonial Williamsburg workshops, only using hand tools, and could only work by the light of day because they couldn't afford using candles at night). As kid, I always wanted a small metal lathe but that was not possible. Instead I went to the school and local town libraries to learn as much as I could about hand finishing and machining. In junior high I taught myself from books on how to do mechanical and isometric drawings. By age fourteen, I was determined to make my own small 5" swing x 16" manual metal lathe. I completed the lathe before turning sixteen and learned a lot along the way - more important than making the lathe was learning to precisely hand saw, file, fit and finish metal parts with very little tool marks showing. I made the lathe by laminating steel plates to build-up headstock, carriage and tailstock by joining the layers together with a lot machine screws and tapped holes and the lathe ways were made from 1.5" dia. steel rods. It used very simple bronze bearings and a 1/4 HP motor. I have been searching my old books on machining where I may have inserted a few of my old B&W photos of the lathe as bookmarks. I know I took many photos but can't find them.

The lathe experience paid-off and helped launch my eventual career. As a freshman in college, I used my early experience in making the lathe to talk my way into a job as a prototype machinist and designer for building scientific equipment while attending the University of Washington. I made parts for underwater oceanographic equipment but most of my work dealt with the parts design and drawings using pencil and vellum paper. Although I am no longer in this line of work, I have always had a passion for woodworking and machining. However, I can't emphasize enough how important learning the basic hand skills of precision filing, finishing and fitting can be before advancing to machine tools.

Thank you,

Paul Jones

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paul Jones

Marv and all,

The lathe experience paid-off and helped launch my eventual career.

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All the experience I gained in those shop courses and in my Dad's basement shop helped immensely in the course of my education and career as well.

In a high school AP biology course, I built a perfusion machine to keep rabbit kidneys alive without the benefit of a rabbit while I studied the effect of various contaminants in the blood stream. This involved building pumps, both blood and water, an oxygen diffusion gauge, and cannulae for connecting the kidney arteries and ureter to the machine.

The machine is long gone but I still have my documentation of the work including a hand-drawn sketch of the machine. I don't have a scanner big enough for it but I took this picture with it pinned to a window for maximum contrast; you should be able to get the idea of how it worked...

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/f...e/109134-1.jpg

In college, one of the physics labs required us to build a radiation detector tube, turning metal and blowing glass. It was my first experience with making pass-through-glass wiring. I can remember helping several Bronx High School of Science graduates with the lathe work. They had grown up in New York apartments and had never seen anyone except the apartment house super use tools.

My senior project in college involved superconducting solenoids which meant more lathe work to make the coil forms and associated field measurement instrumentation . I was studying various properties of the Niobium-Zirconium wire in use then. These fist-sized coils could generate extremely intense fields while wired to an ordinary automobile battery because, of course, they had zero resistance so could draw huge amounts of current.

If they generated a sufficient field to drive themselves out of the superconducting region, they would dump all their stored energy back out as a huge current pulse. We kept a one ohm resistor wired across the battery as a fuse. It had lower resistance than the battery internal resistance, so the pulse would pass through it, blowing it to smithereens with a satisfying POP that alerted us to the fact that the field had collapsed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Sanders

Hi Marv
the most useful thing I made back then was a tension/torque wrench like this...

Attachment 22801

Peter

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I have a clicker torque wrench identical to the one in your picture. It was given to me by an 85 year old when I was 16. 58 years later I still use it at least monthly.

Marv
Just imagine where your life would have taken you if it was not for your dads old lathe and then shop in the school system. It might have flaws but at the time it was just what you needed to fall in love with the shiny stuff. Enjoyed your story and thank you so very much for sharing.
Again very nice
Nelson

Quote:

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Originally Posted by olderdan

Hi Christophe
The education system is similar in the UK, it is now left to going to a trade school for those who do not achieve the exam grades.
I spent my early years obsessed with Mechano and would spend the whole evening with it spread out over the living room floor until bedtime (no TV in those days).
It taught me about gears and pulleys but above all patience and a sense of achievement and in my youth I progressed to model making, my bedroom would always smell of balsa cement and paint.
Today it does not seem very cool to get your hands grubby but maybe they have got it right as everything has to move on, if I had had a crystal ball I do not know if I would have chosen to spend most of my working life in the equivalent of a cow shed for average wages.
Gave it up for the last 10 years to go self employed renovating houses.

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Marv's original thread sure pulled up lots of reminiscing on how it started for us. Each post in the thread relates individual avenues toward this work we enjoy so much. Quite sure we identify the similarities, no matter where you call home.
One in particular crystallized my attitude.
So, reading olderdan's post sent me off about what is "Mechano"?. It's a British creative toy engineering set. For the Yankees, it turns out very much like our "Erector Sets". Wikipedia has it spelled differently as 'Meccano', and you'll love this kicker...wait for it.
In 1901 Frank Hornby, a clerk from Liverpool, England, invented and patented a new toy called "Mechanics Made Easy" that was based on the principles of mechanical engineering.
The word "Meccano" was thought to have been derived from the phrase "Make and Know".
True or not, that is what happens.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ncollar

Marv
Just imagine where your life would have taken you if it was not for your dads old lathe and then shop in the school system. It might have flaws but at the time it was just what you needed to fall in love with the shiny stuff. Enjoyed your story and thank you so very much for sharing.
Again very nice

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Perhaps I would have been better off had I become a machinist rather than spending all those years chasing an education. I'm reminded of two famous quotes of my avatar, Einstein...

If only I had known, I would have become a watchmaker.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber.

Now, for me, plumbing is definitely off the table. It's one of the few home repairs I will not touch. However, I think I might have made a fair watchmaker. I love tiny mechanical stuff and am fascinated by all the mechanical trickery that's been invented to make clocks more accurate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mklotz

Perhaps I would have been better off had I become a machinist rather than spending all those years chasing an education. I'm reminded of two famous quotes of my avatar, Einstein...

If only I had known, I would have become a watchmaker.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber.

Now, for me, plumbing is definitely off the table. It's one of the few home repairs I will not touch. However, I think I might have made a fair watchmaker. I love tiny mechanical stuff and am fascinated by all the mechanical trickery that's been invented to make clocks more accurate.

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Lol. There are aspects to plumbing I really like. My home was built 1901-02, still has majority of it's original fixtures. And I've rebuilt all of them; refaced seats of faucets, hose bibs & freeze lines, new washers, repacked stem seals, made new stems for two [long wait to find genuine red brass rod], re-fit three WC's top to bottom, even trimmed the drain sleeves of two tubs [calcium builds up and they leaked out in the time it took for a bath]. Some of the drains are lead pipe, glad that's not popular anymore - very thin & fragile. Interesting how many early parts remain, even still being made! I'm familiar with backflow [Watts & Clays, hooray!] devices, fire sprinklers, motor and engine driven stations, centrifugal and positive displacement pumps, mechanical seals, Victaulic fittings....a lot of upstream stuff. Drainage uh, not so much!

And the clocks part I'll agree with too. One of my favorite historic quests centers on the Harrison's; William and John. I can identify with pursuing a solution for decades...Can't picture making them, not the small parts [done lots of microscopic electro-mechanical assembly] but machines to make them are TOO SMALL!

When it comes to clocks my big hands are not well suited for working on them but I did construct a cuckoo once from a Black Forest kit it had dancing minstrels 3 cuckoos and very ornate carvings I built it back in the 70's while stationed in Germany Then while living in Kuwait the wife and I went to Germany several times 1 time I found an older Hielbronn grandfather clock. at one of the companies I was buying some machinery from. It was shoved back in a corner with a drape over it. I asked about it and the guy just said kaput He had no idea what was wrong with it. After taking a closer look I noticed it had a true Black Forest clock work so I finagled a deal for it to be shipped along with the equipment. Simple straight forward repair someone had pulled the winding chains too hard and fast and dislodged the escapement wheel
Currently I have a 31 day spring wound wall hanger that was given to me because it would do the whole 31 days in 30 hours really annoying to hear the gong go off every 20 to 30 seconds it is hanging on my kitchen wall now either gains a minute or 2 every few days or looses the same every few days. I can always tell when it is time to rewind it since it will have the correct time
A neighbor commented that my clock was 10 minutes fast I told him to come back in a few days and it would have the correct time.
I don't mind plumbing all that much just before I went into the Army for a while I worked for a plumbing contractor and learned a few things. At least enough to know which side the hot should be on and the brown stuff runs down hill the Boss is a *** and Friday was payday. What's not to like as long as it is new construction and I don't have to go under the house LOL.

I live in a typical California house. No basement and much of the plumbing is in the eighteen inch high, dirt floored crawl space underneath the house. At 77 years old, I just don't bend in the right places to get under there. Inside the house, everything is in awkward locations reachable only with more impossible contortions and all the pieces held together by stronger-than-welds corrosion.

Also, I don't think I've ever had a plumbing job that went as planned. The straw that broke this camel's back came with an attempt to replace the flush handle on a toilet. The rod that holds the float had broken free of the handle so replacement was the only option. I thought I was really smart for knowing that the thin nut holding the assembly was threaded left hand. Everything welded with corrosion.

Somehow, I managed to twist a bit too hard and a large, dagger-shaped chunk of porcelain broke from the tank and speared into the carpet about an inch from my sneaker-clad foot. This was, of course, followed by a miniature waterfall that dumped the contents of the tank on the bathroom carpet and my pants.

I'm not the tool-throwing type so I just stood there gobsmacked, then erupted into a litany of curses in three languages. Finally, I realized that this was a sign from the plumbing gods that I should not invade their space. Since then, I call the plumber for anything more complicated than a washer replacement or a new toilet flush valve.

You just have to learn to pick your battles. Only fight enemies you have a chance of defeating.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mklotz

I live in a typical California house. No basement and much of the plumbing is in the eighteen inch high, dirt floored crawl space underneath the house. At 77 years old, I just don't bend in the right places to get under there. Inside the house, everything is in awkward locations reachable only with more impossible contortions and all the pieces held together by stronger-than-welds corrosion.

Also, I don't think I've ever had a plumbing job that went as planned. The straw that broke this camel's back came with an attempt to replace the flush handle on a toilet. The rod that holds the float had broken free of the handle so replacement was the only option. I thought I was really smart for knowing that the thin nut holding the assembly was threaded left hand. Everything welded with corrosion.

Somehow, I managed to twist a bit too hard and a large, dagger-shaped chunk of porcelain broke from the tank and speared into the carpet about an inch from my sneaker-clad foot. This was, of course, followed by a miniature waterfall that dumped the contents of the tank on the bathroom carpet and my pants.

I'm not the tool-throwing type so I just stood there gobsmacked, then erupted into a litany of curses in three languages. Finally, I realized that this was a sign from the plumbing gods that I should not invade their space. Since then, I call the plumber for anything more complicated than a washer replacement or a new toilet flush valve.

You just have to learn to pick your battles. Only fight enemies you have a chance of defeating.

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Hate it when that happens.
Once a very long time ago I thought I wanted to be a house flipper long before the term was heard of. I bought a slab built house and decided to do some minor renovations and upgrades. YEAH RIGHT!
I received a brutal education in why you never buy a HUD 322 tract home if it is over a few years old. After all of the cosmetics were completed and I was just about ready to put it on the market the city took it upon themselves to up the pressure in the area to the newer standards. I started noticing plumbing service trucks in the area every day. So I was thinking boy I'm sure glad I replaced all of the fixtures and have my inspections out of the way. Then the unthinkable happened I got my water bill which was many 1000s of gallons more usage than the months before. I made sure nothing was turned on in the house then checked the meter the little dials were spinning faster than the impeller of a turbo jet engine. I did the only thing I could think of I called a plumber one whose name I had seen in the area previously.
Long story short after a week of constant jack hammering enough cement dust in the house to start up my own concrete recycling plant, pipes replaced new concrete poured new drywall ripped out new carpets ruined and a bill for the repairs nearly equaling what I paid for the house I decided that buying and renovating houses were not for me. Also I have never owned another slab built house.

I [certain we all] enjoy Marv's descriptions. Science, physics and engineering are so distinct and seemingly regimented. But creativity bends that for advancements. Then, there is everyday life. A foray in and right back out of household plumbing is a perfect example.
Count this :rofl: as a youtube of me; for images of miniature waterfalls and "erupted into a litany of curses in three languages". Don't need or want to know which, I'm having fun guessing at two of them...

My own introduction to the wonders of the engineering world also started with Meccano, and holding things for my Dad in his workshop. At the time he was studying to become a medical specialist (Ophthalmology). He burglar-proofed our home because he had to go overseas to do his specialist examinations, and I held the bucking bar for the rivetting. Once he had qualified he was able to indulge himself and assembled one of the best-equipped home workshops I know of, and this was all available to me as a schoolboy.
At highschool we had 2 years of Woodwork, followed by 2 years of Metalwork as an option. Our teacher recognised my interest, and while the others built various items of furniture for their woodwork projects, he assisted me to build a small sailboat. Similarly in Metalwork, I was allowed to make a photographic enlarger. I went on to an apprenticeship as a Fitter and Turner, and followed that with the necessary studies and examinations to qualify as a mechanical engineer when I was 30.
Sadly, our education system no longer provides those opportunities, and I bought my shaper from a school - the shaper had been unused for some 15 years.

1 Christmas I received a large tinker toy set it was a 6 inch diameter card board cylinder about 2 ft long filled with wooden dowels and spools with holes drilled in them
While it was a lots of fun I very quickly grew bored with it. The Following year I got 2 of the young engineers dream toys, the Gilbert Erector sets in big red metal boxes.
1 from my folks and the other from an Uncle. 2 of my cousins got them as well but somehow over time I wound up with all 4 sets. Us kids were always trading things back and forth. I had 1000's of nuts & bolts girders rods brass pulleys rubber belts and lots of small dc electric motors and linkages of all shapes to build things with. A few of my builds would take weeks to complete and I prayed for really bad weather days

Wow,,,great stories everyone. Marv, you are one of many that learn the hard way that a toilet handle is reverse threads. I was a service plumber almost all of my life. I always will remember running service calls with my father when I was 8-9yrs old. I remembered him always helping people and walking away with money in his pocket. I always told myself that one day I want to help people like my dad does. So when I turned 14 I went for my drivers license test and passed. I came home to show my old man my new license and he said good job son and threw me a set of keys. Well,,the keys where not to his car to take my girlfriend out,,,,the keys where to his service truck. He said he had a few jobs lined up for me and I was happy as could be. As time went on I realized that I kind of fell into being a plumber and realized my own passion was working with metal and not other peoples you know what.iI took a pipe welding course at night when the service calls where done. I tested out of the class early. We had to have our welds stress tested in a 20 ton press. We had to cut a 3/8 plate in half that we butt welded together and one piece was bent to test the root weld and the other half was bent the opposite way to test the cap weld. I still have the old piece of steel on a shelf in my living room to remind me of the time I choose to blaze my own path in life and become my own man. That school helped me land a job at the local machine shop that makes Apollo ball valves. They saw me as a good fit with my background being a plumber and my welding skills. This plant in our town was the steel division of Apollo valves and the few years I was welding there surrounded by some of the best machining equipment I ever seen. I wanted to know all there was to know about how they ran and what they did. I eventually put in for a position running a mill and loved everything about the job. I made my way threw the plant running all the different stages of making all the different components of a ball valve while learning how to machine anything within .005 tolerance of the prints. Unfortunately the 22yrs of plumbing took its toll on my body and the 10hr shifts of standing on concrete at the plant caught up with me and I had to give it up. My body could not keep up with my brain and I left that plant. We where actually blamed for the big oil leak in the gulf when the valve on a oil rig failed and dumped thousands of gallons of crude oil into the gulf. I later found out that our foundry puts a tracing material in all the steel to identify our valves from the competitors. Well we all know that the valve turned out to be a china companies valve that failed and it was a huge benefit for business here at this plant. I still have that old bent piece of steel on a shelf in my living room to remind me of those days and how I went off on my own path.Attachment 24989

Really enjoyed reading this thread especially as ive been feeling my years recently but being of the lego technics generation, reading stories from mechano boys has made me feel like a spring chicken!
At the risk of sounding like a palm reader i think How it started for a lot of us was decided before we were making conscious decisions, I have young lads come through my work as school or collage work experience, some were always meant to use their hands but never knew it, others want to but no amount of encouragement can replace the enthusiasm with fineness.
A lot of people have blamed or thanked their fathers for their desire to spend endless hours and quite often money learning and producing things that only ever leads to the exact same process, my dad certainly did this and so did his, my dads brother, my uncle takes things to a biblical level but the more time i spend with youngsters who are from such mixed backgrounds sometimes with no fathers, the more certain i am that its a genetic blessing (or disability my girlfriend says)
I think it is a possibility that nature Just decided some of us would get more excited about tool catalogues than football shirts and drum sets and our experiences did little more than decide what particular flavour of making we would favour.

How It All Got Started...While this isn't the longest forum topic [yet], it's safe to say no readers haven't some kind of similar history.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Turboconqueringmegaeagle

I think it is a possibility that nature Just decided some of us would get more excited about tool catalogues than football shirts and drum sets and our experiences did little more than decide what particular flavour of making we would favour.

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Before professionalism [as an identity] stole who really generates the products we all depend on, toolmakers and machinists were 'King of the Hill'. You cannot examine any product where their hands and minds haven't put life into a mere idea.
Including tool catalogs, the items within, football shirts, and drum sets...

[QUOTE=Toolmaker51;115124]
toolmakers and machinists were 'King of the Hill'

It used to be normal to work for the same firm your entire career which is a fantastic way to become truly skilled but having been under continuous employment with the same firm for 10 years, my friends in the city have started asking "what... you still work there?" almost as if i am selling myself short and somehow inferior because their go getter attitude has them in new employment at least every 3 years!

I think it is also important to remember that 50 years ago before CNC took hold in the tool room and the machinist was king of production it was not uncommon to have one man design teams like Mr Issigonis who not just created a revolutionary motor car but a new assembly line technique which heavily influenced the vehicle itself, if the machinist was king, men like Issigonis were Gods!

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Originally Posted by Papa Smurf

My own introduction to the wonders of the engineering world also started with Meccano, and holding things for my Dad in his workshop. At the time he was studying to become a medical specialist (Ophthalmology). He burglar-proofed our home because he had to go overseas to do his specialist examinations, and I held the bucking bar for the rivetting. Once he had qualified he was able to indulge himself and assembled one of the best-equipped home workshops I know of, and this was all available to me as a schoolboy.
At highschool we had 2 years of Woodwork, followed by 2 years of Metalwork as an option. Our teacher recognised my interest, and while the others built various items of furniture for their woodwork projects, he assisted me to build a small sailboat. Similarly in Metalwork, I was allowed to make a photographic enlarger. I went on to an apprenticeship as a Fitter and Turner, and followed that with the necessary studies and examinations to qualify as a mechanical engineer when I was 30.
Sadly, our education system no longer provides those opportunities, and I bought my shaper from a school - the shaper had been unused for some 15 years.

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Interesting post! I wasn't too far out of high school when I started working maintenance in a die cast foundry. Part of the job was interfacing with the tool and die makers which was always of great interest to me. One of the younger die makers had a rather involved and on going project making himself a view camera. I left before he finished but I have to imagine that was one of the finest view cameras on the planet!!! He never skimped on the materials used in its build that is for sure.

Being a young guy and frankly only out in the larger world of working people for a couple of years I really thought that it was odd that such projects where even permitted. The days when I'm nearing 60, I kinda wish I had taken a stronger attitude with respect to government work. I could have easily created a shop full of useful tools by now. Instead I now wonder if I will even make it to retirement to enjoy the few tools I have in my home shop.

For the young guys out there reading this, all I can say is to look out for #1. In part that means pursuing dreams even if the bank account is a bit shallow.

re Wizard69 and government work, g-jobs etc.
I do g-jobs every day all day, in a manner different than some. Most of them are shop work in reality; taking notes & photos detailing whatever cool aspect I've employed to produce parts wanted. Maybe temporary tooling, an interesting shopmade cutter, holding multiple items...Later, being able to throw a setup quickly gets my project done in a snap. Doing self-imposed jobs isn't just cutting chips, welding, or even scribing lines. Regardless one's level of expertise, job planning can be just as rewarding.
Right now I'm modding jack pad of my HF dual piston floor jack. Clamped, dialed it in and re-slotted one pair of 'fingers' in 18 minutes, with time to saw backbone of the special soft pad.
In a whole week I might only eat lunch one time. Last three weeks I collected right size remnant steel, re-bent counterweight arms, made 1 replacement weight, spot-drilled index detents in 4 now matching arms, drilled/ tapped a second clamp screw in all 4 weights. Burned a few extra calories and avoided a few hundred! Once improvements are on, finish front and back gauges for it.
All for new to me sheet metal brake, posted sometime back but I haven't perfected searches of general posts, our tools are easy.