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ot. you know your a machinist when

chas

Aluminum
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
Location
ma,usa
you take your wife and kids on vacation to the cog railway in NH cog and eveybody looking at the old trains are saying wow thats neet and im telling my kids see that front axel that was turned in a lathe like i have in my shop,and see that cog wheel it has a broached keyway thats what keeps it from spinning on the axel,and people are looking at me like im talking in chinese.its kind off cool to educate people about what a machine shop does,most people dont realize just about everything they use starts of in a machine shop.
 
....when:

**After 25 yrs you are just discovering that MOST people don't have sore feet at the end of the day.

**You lay down to go to sleep and wake up with the soultion to a difficult setup you are working on....and it happens on a regular basis.

**Your friends all say,"You work HOW many hours each day...!!??"

**Someone asks what you do for a living and you say, "I'm in manufacturing." because you don't have the twenty five minutes to give a clueless culture an inkling of what makes their life so easy.....

**A car blows its horn at you and sounds similar to the lunch wagon.....and you begin to salivate.

**A buddy that has an office job says he is taking a "personal day" tomorrow and you don't know what he's talking about.

**You can think of six other thing you are qualified to do that pay more but you don't even try....

** You think your shop smells good.

**Watching OCC pisses you off.

**At the end of a long day you get on a machinists forum just to rub elbows with some people that still know how to think....


Just a few that come to mind..... ;)
 
**You lay down to go to sleep and wake up with the soultion to a difficult setup you are working on....and it happens on a regular basis.


**Someone asks what you do for a living and you say, "I'm in manufacturing." because you don't have the twenty five minutes to give a clueless culture an inkling of what makes their life so easy.....
Wow, I could nto have stated those better if I tried! God, and I thought I was the only one.... :D
 
Wow where to start hehe.

You know your a machinest when you realise your not 1/10 as smart as you THOUGHT you were after 1 year on the job.

When almost any object combined with some spare time leads you to think about how they made it, and not only that, what the molds, dies, and tools that made it might look like.

When you hear machines and cutters in your sleep, and think of it as a good thing :)

When you can not only run the machine, but repair it, and could even make almost all of the cutting tools you would need to run it (could not SHOULD :) )

When you realise that 97% of the world, their dad never tought them that an open ended wrench is only used when needed, otherwise use a box end or a socket, and when you tell a new kid that, and he asks "why"..you realise that for him it may be far too late, and you could maybe never explain.

When you know "nice" work when you see it, and try to do it on every job, but make the boss some $$ too...so you try to do nice work fast.

When people say to you "everything comes easy for you".....and you realise to some degree that is true, but give yourself credit for giving the job and the trade that extra work needed in each endeavor to make truly excellant parts with the machine and tools you have at hand.

Bill

Bill
 
The classic replies:

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a machinist"

"Oh, so you like weld stuff?"

:rolleyes:


Smallshop wrote: "**Someone asks what you do for a living and you say, "I'm in manufacturing." because you don't have the twenty five minutes to give a clueless culture an inkling of what makes their life so easy....."

Pretty much sums it up. I've been doing this for 13 years and only a few weeks ago did my father learn that metal wasn't all cast.

Another favorite is the "Cheap plastic crap" comments people make, never realizing to make that mold probably took close to a million dollars in equipment to machine, hundreds of hours of engineering and machining, cost the customer somewhere into the 6 figures to aquire, and runs on a machine that uses more electricity in an hour than they use all month.

If people only had a CLUE how much goes into making the things they take for granted every day...
 
*****you know you are machinist when pulled over for a speeding ticket and you reply to the "how fast were you driving" question in feet per minute

*** you can tell a wannabe from a real machinist toolmaker within the first hour ( lets face it, whenyou work with a guy who has his stuff together it shows that fast)

**** you look at everything and ask, how would I make this?
 
"When you wash your hands *before* you pee."

As for the 'wake up with the answer to the
difficult problem' feature, that happens to me
during my morning shower. I get my best ideas
then.

Probably I'm still wandering around asleep
until the water hits me!

Jim
 
Smallshop stated it so well.

About 3 years ago I became "serious" about being a home shop hobbyist and bought a lathe and a mill. I was amazed at how totally hopeless it is trying to explain (to most anybody) what the purpose and difference is between my lathe and vert. mill. Most people are totally clueless and uninterested as to how anything is produced. Now, I mostly just keep quiet.

What I find somewhat discouraging is that my kids and their friends could not care less. For them it is all about computers. Maybe if I went CNC......
 
Please give a moment of silence for the old man in the mountain. Rest in peace old friend. I look at everything and try to figure out how to make it and everything they did wrong when they made it. I gave up trying to tell people what I do for a living, usually I leave it at I work with metal. I heard someone say a machinist is like a carpenter that works with metal.

You know your a machinist when you realise you smell like oil and you like it.
 
When you go for a medical MRI and they need to x-ray your eyes first to make sure there are no ferrous particles present.
 
when you see something broke and you say i can fix that cheep . all machinists have a fix this spot in there hearts.....jim
 
When you're driving on one of those big curved overpasses on the freeway & you wonder to yourself what the radius of something like that might be.
 
When the little kid next door that you tried to show a few tricks to invites you to the celebration of his commerical shop's tenth anniversary.

:D
:D
 








 
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