Difference Between Toolmaker & Machinist?

[wildbillstill]

i can definitely state that a shop owner may not know squat about how to make something. my cousin and his wife bought a nice job shop a few years ago and neither one of them is a machinist or would know where to even start a job without the ppl they employ.

 

[JonBohlander]

I work in a captive toolroom of a plastics factory and IMHO a moldmaker should also be able to able to make a mold run correctly. (I imagine a diemaker also) Otherwise they are just a precision machinist. There are alot of variables for a mold to run correctly: Cooling, vents,gates, lands, polish, partlines, etc. For instance a burr that barely catchs your fingernail can keep a part from coming off the core. For the record my job title is moldmaker but I consider myself a moldmonkey. I take the title moldmaker serious and I need alot more machine time before I would call myself one.
on the other hand I've seen guys with twenty years experience as "moldmakers" that had trouble putting a mold together i.e.forgetting every single bolt that holds two plates together making for one hell of a water leak in the press.

Sorry for being so long-winded,Jon

 

[TheMetalDoctor]

Coldiron had his own answer...

The difference is ... coldiron and hotiron..

Pardon the pun..

TMD

 

[JRIowa]

A lot of years ago, I was working for an MBA. He had the title "Manager of Manufacturing Services". He had Eng., Maint., QA, & puchasing. The company at that time was on one of these job descreption phases. He came up with the brilliant idea of calling everybody in Engineering, Engineers. During that time, the heat treat dept. wanted to install a new jib crane on a wall. The manager came to me and said that they needed the calculations done to see if the wall was strong enough. I told him that "one of the other Engineers" could help. We went back to having technicians.

It is not your title, it is what you know and how you do it. There is also a big difference between smart and experienced.

Me, I'm just an old farm boy trying to figure out a way to make a living.

JR

 

[vortech]

MANUFACTURING MANAGERS!
The majority of them I have run across are just 'Managers'. They take attendance, go to bs meetings and shoot the crap all day. You usually can't find them and if you needed help with something they would be lost. In my opinion they are "OVER HEAD" and "OVER PAID."

 

[Forrest Addy]

Vortek

Yeah, title inflation, the bane of organizations. The more space takers you have around the conference table the less gets accomplished.

A friend of mine owns a mid-sized business large enough to support an executive staff. He tells me that no matter how hard he tries he can't keep the staff from getting larger. There's only about a third of them that does useful work anyway. He periodically thins them by giving them no-win but unimportant tasks. If they succeed great. If not out they go.

One of my hats is "Master Carpenter" of the local opera company; or that's what precedes my name in the programs.

I'm a fair carpenter but not a master of the trade but I do make good sets for damn little money if I say so myself. What "Master Carpenter" means is I have a big shop, some woodworking talent, and a truck. Since I'm retired I have plenty of spare time to haul stuff and do grunt work between productions. Thus I get the title without the compensation I'm a fool.

Used to be the individual that showed you where to find the work socks or concrete nails or dill pickle relish was called a store clerk. Now they're "sales associates".

My cousin took a couple of courses and got the license to sell real estate. He rummaged up an entry level job in a large local real estate outfit. On his card was the word "sales executive". Well, Tom is a kind, considerate, honest to a fault, LDS gentleman. He lasted a year. While he didn't make enough commission to pay for his suits there for a shining moment he was a "sales executive".

It's said in the military when the command structure gets top-heavy it's time for a war.

I served my time as a machinist apprentice and went through a hard school. 13 graduated out of the 40 that started. The work I've taken the greatest satisfaciton from has always been machinist related. Making parts, fixing parts, salvaging mis-machined parts and just plain building stuff and working on machinery has been my calling and my vocation.

I've held some fancy jobs since 1961 but when the usual questions come after meeting strangers, I still tell them I'm a machinist.

[This message has been edited by Forrest Addy (edited 07-21-2003).]

 

[eddiez]

In review of it all.
When I was 22 I became a machinist. I was certain that I could make anything on any machine faster and better than most.
When I was 26 I became a toolmaker correcting and oversights that the engineering dept. may have had. When I was 28
I became the engineer who gave the toolmaker the drawings to finish was was needed and instructed the machinist on how to get it done faster. When I was 30 I opened my own shop where building custom automation to assembly products designed by other engineers. At 35 I became the idea and concept person who helped the engineers design better products, the toolmakers to become the touchup men, and machinists and cnc operators to make things quicker.
Today I am 56 and ready to retire from all of this BS and realized I should have joined the plumbers union when I was 19 and could have made 1/3 more per hour, probably could have been retired by now.
Remeber one mans (s--t)is another mans gold.
One other thing, besides building automation, We do run production secondary operations. These are performed by a bunch of wonderfull ladies who quietly sit by machines designed and built my me. And they do not compete with each other as machinists
do, they are not the pre madonnas that the tool makers are, and certainly not the know it all's that the engineers are. They are however good ideas people who help concept what makes there job easier and a very good team which makes my job a hell of lot easier.

justfood for thought

eddiez

 

[challenger]

I came across this thread, now older than my new girlfriend (JUST KIDDING!!!!!) as I was searching for advice on where to get a lab style coat. I'm thinking of getting this in place of my box store apron. The second post by Forrest is one of the funniest posts I've read here. I thought I'd post a reply in the hopes that a new member or three would look through it and get a taste of some highly sophisticated humor and finely tuned sarcasm. Good work here. The hell with the topic, the humor over shadows all the talk of "tool and die maker" vs Machinist. This is especially true since the thread degraded to and threw mould makers, sewing machine operators and, as I choke one the word, engineers.
Good stuff here if you have not read it this post should be a prerequisite to joining PM.
I am truly discouraged that I had dreams of doing the comedy here and now know I couldn't be the opening act.

 

[yardbird]

Machinists are better looking, more productive, broadly knowledgable, and have greater understanding of all things than the doofuses in white aprons. The machinists get the girls (the young single ones - the older ones make fabulous husbands being loyal and affectionate, good with children, and provident).

Toolmakers have a lower reproductive rate (who would marry one?), stand looking at benches a lot, and never get their hands dirty. Tool makers complain because the can't read the drawing, hate to work with (enter most any material here) and have to ask machinist to perform calculations for them.

Why they get premium pay, I don't know. Maybe it's to make up for the burden of the "toolmaker" title.

Yeah, there's a bit of tension between machinists and toolmakersand we all have fun with it. Both are great trades and a worker in either will find a whole vocation to occupy his talents all his career. Toolmakers do carry a bit more responsibility and work more from general direction than detailed drawings.

I've done a good deal of toolmaking in my day but I'd never present myself as one at a job interview. No toolmakier could hope to get the productivity out of machine tools or be as efficient at fitting and alignment as a good all around machinist.

As for a precise distinction I'd go as far as: tool makers make tools, jigs, and fixtures for manufacturing and production and a machinist focuses on production machine work and the assembly and fitting of machined parts into working mechanisms.

Try to make too great a distinction and you inevitable run into an extensive overlap.

It's sufficient to say that a toolmaker can make one simple part to 40 millionths of an inch in the time it takes a machinist to make 100 complex parts to 0.0005".

Take away the derisive tone of the above gibe and it becomes a statement of orientation. The toolmaker is a specialist and the machinist a production worker.

I'd hate them overpaid bastards in white aprons - if I didn't need them so much.

D. It's my understanding the English divide what we in the US call "machinist" into two specialties, "turners" and "fitters". One being the guys who make chips and the other the bench mechanics. I dunno why.

I interviewed for a job in Australia just for funzies. I gave him a quick verbal on my skills and experience as and "all-around machinist and the foremen couldn't figure out how to categorize me. He thought I was "...'avin' 'im on."

[This message has been edited by Forrest Addy (edited 07-14-2003).]

The only difference between me and a toolmaker is the collection of letters that make up our trade names and I don't have to climb in between die halves. Yes we are by far better looking...


Brent

 

[The real Leigh]

To address the original subject of the thread...

I think the two specialties would actually be distinguished only in large organizations with many such folks on the payroll.

In my experience, "machinists" are more production oriented, while "tool and die makers" are focused on one-offs.

Machinists typically make large numbers of things that conform to good documentation.

T&DMs commonly make one or a few of something, possibly lacking full documentation, or even writing same.

I know T&DMs are expected to be proficient with all equipment in the shop.
Machinists may be similarly trained, or may be focused on one type of machine.

But obviously, any company will use whoever can do the job.

- Leigh

 

[hermetic]

Hi All.

Here's the English take on the matter;

A machinist, is as has been said elswhere operates a sewing machine. A person who operates an automated machine is known as a machine minder or operator, wether it be an old capstan type lathe, or a modern CNC. A turner is a skilled lathe operator who will be operating and setting up his own machine, be it a lathe, mill or whatever, and usually making and repairing one offs, prototypes short runs etc, but generally not mass production. A precision engineer will operate any machine in the shop, sharpen his own tooling and make jigs and general equipment to make parts, and then also make the parts, but again we are talking small numbers, large numbers are passed back to the turner, or the machine operator. Most of these above will serve an apprenticeship of at least five years and will attend college as well. The toolmaker usually has his own workshop and makes jigs, fitments and tooling, does repair work on machine tools, this includes designing the parts tools and fitments needed to make a part. There is, or used to be an intermediate trade called a die sinker, who would make moulds and press dies fore injection moulding, pressing and stamping and the like. Traditionally, the best paid was the toolmaker, who always served a 7 year apprenticeship including an engineering degree course.
Phil

 

[paracongo308]

I worked for 36 years before retiring from a large automotive body & frame Mfg, company. We had basically 4 different titles which were tool & die floor, Tool & die machine, jig & fixture, and maintenance machinist. and we had 2 pay scales A class & B class You stayed where you were assigned to unless there was a opening in another position. The T&D mkrs would do all layout and prepare work that needed machining along with sketches and it would be carted or overhead craned down to the machine area. Once the machining was completed it would go back to the floor where the die makers would do all fitting and installation then when completed the finished die would go to tryout (another building) tryout was a sub of T&D. Jig & fixture was another area where inspection fixtures would be built for the inspection Dept. All there work that required machining would also be brought to the machine area. Our shop not including the tryout area was 1/4 million square feet building. The maintenance shop was a separate shop that repaired broken machinery, conveyer's, and stamping presses. So machinist were people who worked in the machine shop, tool & die makers were people who worked on the floor where the only machines they had were drill presses.

 

[challenger]

I really don't care about the title argument. I care more about the verbal darts and the clever manner in which they are delivered.

 

[The real Leigh]

I care more about the verbal darts and the clever manner in which they are delivered.

I certainly agree that Forrest's lengthy response early in this thread was quite clever and entertaining.

Of course he's had a long time to develop his opinion, given that his main task as an apprentice was truing chariot wheels.

- Leigh

 

[challenger]

I certainly agree that Forrest's lengthy response early in this thread was quite clever and entertaining.

Of course he's had a long time to develop his opinion, given that his main task as an apprentice was truing chariot wheels.

- Leigh

Ha! That's what I'm talking about.
So what category does truing chariot wheels fall under?
Wheel Wright? Tool/die maker? Machinist?
IMO most parents today are "tool makers" judging by what's coming out of them these days. [emoji16]

 

[Bob-O]

Here's my $.02...
My dad spent his whole working life in the tool & die trade, 50 years of it at 1 company. I literally grew up around it and worked a short time at it before going on to engineering. He retired as a VP for a 400 employee company after starting as an apprentice in 1939.

Anyway, the machinists could set up and operate the various machine tools for both prototype and production runs. They made parts to a drawing.

The toolmakers designed and built all the jigs, fixtures, and specialty machines. Some were designed and detailed in the engineering office, some at the bench. In that case, the machinists made the parts, but the toolmakers did the initial assembly and debugging working closely with the engineers. They worked from verbal instruction, rough sketches, and sample parts. Sometimes, they made their own parts, other times sketches and drawings were given to the machinists depending on the schedules and workloads. The toolmakers could also do their own heat treating as we had a full heat treating department in house.

The diemakers, like my father, were like the toolmakers, but had to design and layout the die (progressive draw dies), doing all necessary calculations such as blank development, number of draws to process the part, etc. You guys in the trade know what I mean. Dies were designed on the bench, not in an office. They fed the apprentices (toolmakers learning the die part of the trade), and the machinists. They bore the responsibility for the success or failure of the completed die. They "owned" it.

Due to the nature of the business, diemakers were the ones chosen to move up into management. My dad was 1 who made it to the front office, just like the 1 a generation before him, and the 1 who got the office when dad retired.

 

[allloutmx]

about 30-40k

 

[challenger]

Ignorance being shown here but would it be correct to say a "die" is a device (don't want to confuse the question by using the word "tool") that is used for forming material. I seem to be getting this feeling given the replies. Whether it be foam for a car seat (maybe that is a mould?) or something that becomes part of a manufacturing process that involves extruding, shaping etc?
Assuming some of this is true then a die maker may be the person fabricating this piece/part and he would develop a working part using one or more possible resources including his brain, drawings, prints and so on. This all sounds like a die maker is the one who does prototyping of manufacturing processing parts. If/when more than one "die" is required the original die is turned into a blue print and given to a Machinist who is responsible for removing unwanted material from a piece of stock rendering a part identical to the original die.
Now say this die is going to be part of an assembly that needs to be built. A tool maker would design and make a jig and/or fixture that would facilitate the production of the assembly that the die would become part of.
Is this a somewhat close overall view of the three different trades and titles?
Are (were?) most die makers also tool makers and vice versa? Is the title of "tool and die maker" one that a person has or is it more of a description for a type of machine shop. Sort of like all oncologists are hematologists IYKWIM?
Sorry for the ignorant rant. I completely missed the boat when I was 19 and spent a year working for a company that rebuilt machinery. It was on LI NY and they rebuilt and retrofitted machines in sizes from large Bridgeport Mills to gigantic gantry Mills for the aircraft industry. My job was wiring the control panels but I was much more interested in the metal and machinery than I was the electrical. This was when numerical control was just hitting it's stride. My one year there sparked a major interest in machining. Back then I remember seeing several dudes that seemed to have similar jobs but some spent all day working a machine and others would do some of that as well as other functions that I couldn't define. Not to be a smart ass but the latter were always a bit cleaner at the end of the day and we're usually standing with the brass when a customer was Cutting a cone to test a machine. Back then I though maybe they were part of the owner family or were professional brown noses that received special treatment but now I think these were the tool and/or die makers. The engineers never got dirty. Lots of dirty looks though.
I recently Googled this company. It was 38 years ago and they are history. Seems like they folded up in the late 80's and, from what I could gather, were involved in a half million dollar bankruptcy scam with another company trying to dupe the irs. I don't like cheats, liars etc. Unless they are getting a something over on the irs. Then I'll tip my hat.
Unrelated note. This job was the most brutal place for practical jokes. Guys washing their hands at the huge semi circle sink and another guy fills their pocket with Vactra 4. Guys taking someone's Street clothes, soaking them in water and putting them in the freezer. There was no limit to the things people would do to each other under the name of "practical joke"

 

[Weasel]

A toolmaker is a slow machinist.

 

[Bob-O]

Challenger,
In my previous post, I was referring to the metal stampings industry when I was describing what diemakers did. I also spent 6 years at a local die casting company as an engineer. We referred to the tooling used to make our products, cast from either aluminum or zinc, as dies, the craftsmen building them also were called diemakers. Ironic that had the same products been molded in plastic, the tools would have been called molds and the craftsman mold makers. Go figure.