Themanualguy
Aluminum
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2014
- Location
- Wollongong, Australia
Yep you read correctly haha. 22 years old
Hey everyone, my name is Zak Anderson and Im a machinist from Kiama, all the way down here in Australia. Beautiful place here, 16 acres of farmland and 10 minutes from town and beach - perfect!
I've been lurking here since I was 16/17 and it feels weird that I feel like I already know some of you guys ( Abom, Ox, John Welden, SND, alloutmx, wheelieking, Don Bailey etc) and here I am introducing myself. But anyways, here's a bit of a background story and how I got to be where I am now ( Ill try not to make you all wait in suspense like wrustle did!
Did the usual things that kids with "the knack" do. Steal dad's tools, pull bikes parts, loose parts, put them back together with even more parts left over. You all know the deal...
When it came to choosing a career path when I was 15, I veered toward engineering at Uni and was headed that way until this damn metalworking trade came along. Freakin loved it! Last 2 years of school I excelled and topped the class in Metalwork - so there was something there I guess haha
Started my apprenticeship at a machine shop in my area. Place did CNC as well as fitting, welding and fab and my personal fav ----- MANUALS!!!!!
Got the hang of the manual lathe pretty freakin quickly and was making parts like this by the 6 month mark.
More months went by, and I learnt more and more. I was cutting slabs of 4140, 400mm in diameter on the saw, taking it over by forklift to the lathe, lifting it on with an overhead crane and turning big couplings, or shafts, or bearing housings. Then my big break came that practically changed the game for me. Phone call while I was at tech school, boss man. Needs me on 10 hr days, biggggggg bunch of lathe work just came in. And were talking pallets and pallets of these huge profile cut rings and discs and long bars of material. 1020, 4140, 350 grade plate. There was tons of this shit.
Was about 2 months of making this bunch of parts, rings, spacers, bearing housings, blanking flanges. Man I really got my lathe training hours up on that puppy ( brand spankin Hwacheon lathe - beautiful machine) So here you have a 1st year apprentice, working out his calculations for making an internal groove on these huge bearing housings with a hand ground radius tool, turning to 0.03mm tolerances all day for $10/hr, needless to say boss was quite stoked!
Started getting some milling hours in on the Bridgeport mill, man this thing was flogged to death! Table floppin around, broken this and that. Piece of shit. But that machine taught me a lot.
And then, time to move on to a different machine for me. CNC HBM. Production work. Okuma pallet mill
10hr days, 30 second cycle time. Pallet changer running full steam all day.
Castings from china needed one hole drilled in them, each box contained 4 castings, 250 boxes to a crate. 15 crates makes 1 order, so that's 15000 castings. No kidding for 6 months this was my life. 10 hour days on this crapp. So after a few talks with the boss about why the crapp work wasn't shared with the other 2nd years ( I had just started 2nd year ) or even with the new first years, they were reluctant to let me have a break from this job, so I moved on.
Next shop - big old school manual shop. Heavy engineering and weld reclamation was the name of their game. Man we did some cool shit in there considering the average age of the machines was about 30 years old. I guess the creativity came down to the average age of the machinists being around 60 - some real smart old cookies in there! No readouts, worn out machines, this was the place to learn the "old school" way. Ran more manual lathes ( up to 2 metre swing and 6.5 meter between centres ), ran some serious mills and floor borers. Learnt HBM and VBM and also learnt the slotter from a crazy old aussie bastard. Times changed, no work was coming in the door so it was back to cleaning the shop for me. Now I enjoy fixing up old machines and cleaning up old workshops and finding cool old tools, but man I was 2 and half years through my apprenticeship, I needed to get back on machines and keep learning my trade.
I wish I had all the pics of that shop on my computer, but they are on my old computer which has a virus and I cant view or move any files.
So off to shop 3, CNC shop again for another shot at the CNC thing. Started as the manual guy ( which I was all the way up to when I left )
Then got put on a HAAS ST30 - man what a sweet machine. I loved that thing, it was such an easy machine to use, held tolerance all day long and it was nice and beefy and rigid. But my heart has always been set on the good old manual stuff, and in fact I could beat the CNC's on some onesey twosey parts, down on the manual lathes and Bridgeport ( this one in much better shape than my first employers Bridgeport!)
Also had the chance to learn cylindrical grinding! Which I really love, love running grinders.
Long story short, 2 years later me and the boss had a fall out and he said some stuff he shouldn't have said and I handed in my resignation.
And here I am haha!
My home shop started around halfway through my employment at the 2nd shop. Started with the infamous VICTOR lathe. Really sweet machine, picked it up from Hare and Forbes ( kinda like the aussie version of MSC ) as a second hand machine. Its in great condition and I really love this machine. Paid $2700 for it, spent probably another 2k on readout/tooling etc
When I bought it, it was dirty and crummy, so I cleaned it all up and gave it a coat of paint. Did this all at work ( in the storage shed ) and some of the assholes of the shop used to play around with it, rub grease on it when the paint was drying etc. Just asshole type stuff.
Found a mill for sale around the corner, Bridgeport clone ( King Rich ) for $1000. Bought that, spent around $4000 tooling really tooling that thing up, readout, div. head, cutters and arbors, face mills. Got the vice and rotab for free!
Got it home, installed, took a cut - greif. Spindle bearings weren't quite right - I couldn't tell when I insopected the machine. Anyway so ordered a set from USA, first set got destroyed by UPS ( no surprises there ) 6 weeks later I had the new bearings in. Much better. Ran the mill like it was for a fair while and made some parts and $$$ on it, but I really wanted to clean it all out and paint it. So me and my girlfriend ( yep she helped haha! ) pulled it apart, cleaned it all out, installed a new oiling system, painted it and now its perfect, whacked a power drawbar on and she's sweet now
NT30 taper, so not as easy to find arbors and tooling. But I make most of my odd ball NT30 taper tooling.
These two pics show where the mill was when I arrived to look at it
And as it currently stands in my shop now
Note: Mill pic is before the power drawbar and a few other mods
A slotter came up for sale. $1500 but man Ill never find one this size easily so I bought it. Needed cleaning straight away and I've just slapped some left over lathe paint on it so I don't have this black pile of iron in the corner. I have plans for a full rebuild when I move into the new shed, and maybe a 2 axis readout. Bought it off a dodgy old bastard ( was worried when we did the deal that someone would see me giving him money and dob him into the tax office as he was doing some dodgy shit, so we had to go into his office and close the blinds haha wtf??
Then lastly, a J&S 540 toolmakers surface grinder. Man this thing is sweet! Bought it for $3600, not a bad price. They are around the $5-6K mark usually around here. Got it home, replaced some filters, skimmed the chuck and off we go. Maybe a re paint and strip down and clean out when I move to the new shop, but for now - it makes $$$
So that's the major machines, got the usual other stuff, welders and pedestal grinders etc. Will show the full shop tomorrow, as its 12am here and I'm buggered.
But basically all that fits in a 20ft shipping container. Barely enough room to fit my moto in before I close the door and lock it haha
Ill post more tomorrow, and some pics of my work. But I gotta go to bed haha
Thanks for looking fellas! Hopefully the pics worked and you can see them
Hey everyone, my name is Zak Anderson and Im a machinist from Kiama, all the way down here in Australia. Beautiful place here, 16 acres of farmland and 10 minutes from town and beach - perfect!
I've been lurking here since I was 16/17 and it feels weird that I feel like I already know some of you guys ( Abom, Ox, John Welden, SND, alloutmx, wheelieking, Don Bailey etc) and here I am introducing myself. But anyways, here's a bit of a background story and how I got to be where I am now ( Ill try not to make you all wait in suspense like wrustle did!
Did the usual things that kids with "the knack" do. Steal dad's tools, pull bikes parts, loose parts, put them back together with even more parts left over. You all know the deal...
When it came to choosing a career path when I was 15, I veered toward engineering at Uni and was headed that way until this damn metalworking trade came along. Freakin loved it! Last 2 years of school I excelled and topped the class in Metalwork - so there was something there I guess haha
Started my apprenticeship at a machine shop in my area. Place did CNC as well as fitting, welding and fab and my personal fav ----- MANUALS!!!!!
Got the hang of the manual lathe pretty freakin quickly and was making parts like this by the 6 month mark.
More months went by, and I learnt more and more. I was cutting slabs of 4140, 400mm in diameter on the saw, taking it over by forklift to the lathe, lifting it on with an overhead crane and turning big couplings, or shafts, or bearing housings. Then my big break came that practically changed the game for me. Phone call while I was at tech school, boss man. Needs me on 10 hr days, biggggggg bunch of lathe work just came in. And were talking pallets and pallets of these huge profile cut rings and discs and long bars of material. 1020, 4140, 350 grade plate. There was tons of this shit.
Was about 2 months of making this bunch of parts, rings, spacers, bearing housings, blanking flanges. Man I really got my lathe training hours up on that puppy ( brand spankin Hwacheon lathe - beautiful machine) So here you have a 1st year apprentice, working out his calculations for making an internal groove on these huge bearing housings with a hand ground radius tool, turning to 0.03mm tolerances all day for $10/hr, needless to say boss was quite stoked!
Started getting some milling hours in on the Bridgeport mill, man this thing was flogged to death! Table floppin around, broken this and that. Piece of shit. But that machine taught me a lot.
And then, time to move on to a different machine for me. CNC HBM. Production work. Okuma pallet mill
10hr days, 30 second cycle time. Pallet changer running full steam all day.
Castings from china needed one hole drilled in them, each box contained 4 castings, 250 boxes to a crate. 15 crates makes 1 order, so that's 15000 castings. No kidding for 6 months this was my life. 10 hour days on this crapp. So after a few talks with the boss about why the crapp work wasn't shared with the other 2nd years ( I had just started 2nd year ) or even with the new first years, they were reluctant to let me have a break from this job, so I moved on.
Next shop - big old school manual shop. Heavy engineering and weld reclamation was the name of their game. Man we did some cool shit in there considering the average age of the machines was about 30 years old. I guess the creativity came down to the average age of the machinists being around 60 - some real smart old cookies in there! No readouts, worn out machines, this was the place to learn the "old school" way. Ran more manual lathes ( up to 2 metre swing and 6.5 meter between centres ), ran some serious mills and floor borers. Learnt HBM and VBM and also learnt the slotter from a crazy old aussie bastard. Times changed, no work was coming in the door so it was back to cleaning the shop for me. Now I enjoy fixing up old machines and cleaning up old workshops and finding cool old tools, but man I was 2 and half years through my apprenticeship, I needed to get back on machines and keep learning my trade.
I wish I had all the pics of that shop on my computer, but they are on my old computer which has a virus and I cant view or move any files.
So off to shop 3, CNC shop again for another shot at the CNC thing. Started as the manual guy ( which I was all the way up to when I left )
Then got put on a HAAS ST30 - man what a sweet machine. I loved that thing, it was such an easy machine to use, held tolerance all day long and it was nice and beefy and rigid. But my heart has always been set on the good old manual stuff, and in fact I could beat the CNC's on some onesey twosey parts, down on the manual lathes and Bridgeport ( this one in much better shape than my first employers Bridgeport!)
Also had the chance to learn cylindrical grinding! Which I really love, love running grinders.
Long story short, 2 years later me and the boss had a fall out and he said some stuff he shouldn't have said and I handed in my resignation.
And here I am haha!
My home shop started around halfway through my employment at the 2nd shop. Started with the infamous VICTOR lathe. Really sweet machine, picked it up from Hare and Forbes ( kinda like the aussie version of MSC ) as a second hand machine. Its in great condition and I really love this machine. Paid $2700 for it, spent probably another 2k on readout/tooling etc
When I bought it, it was dirty and crummy, so I cleaned it all up and gave it a coat of paint. Did this all at work ( in the storage shed ) and some of the assholes of the shop used to play around with it, rub grease on it when the paint was drying etc. Just asshole type stuff.
Found a mill for sale around the corner, Bridgeport clone ( King Rich ) for $1000. Bought that, spent around $4000 tooling really tooling that thing up, readout, div. head, cutters and arbors, face mills. Got the vice and rotab for free!
Got it home, installed, took a cut - greif. Spindle bearings weren't quite right - I couldn't tell when I insopected the machine. Anyway so ordered a set from USA, first set got destroyed by UPS ( no surprises there ) 6 weeks later I had the new bearings in. Much better. Ran the mill like it was for a fair while and made some parts and $$$ on it, but I really wanted to clean it all out and paint it. So me and my girlfriend ( yep she helped haha! ) pulled it apart, cleaned it all out, installed a new oiling system, painted it and now its perfect, whacked a power drawbar on and she's sweet now
NT30 taper, so not as easy to find arbors and tooling. But I make most of my odd ball NT30 taper tooling.
These two pics show where the mill was when I arrived to look at it
And as it currently stands in my shop now
Note: Mill pic is before the power drawbar and a few other mods
A slotter came up for sale. $1500 but man Ill never find one this size easily so I bought it. Needed cleaning straight away and I've just slapped some left over lathe paint on it so I don't have this black pile of iron in the corner. I have plans for a full rebuild when I move into the new shed, and maybe a 2 axis readout. Bought it off a dodgy old bastard ( was worried when we did the deal that someone would see me giving him money and dob him into the tax office as he was doing some dodgy shit, so we had to go into his office and close the blinds haha wtf??
Then lastly, a J&S 540 toolmakers surface grinder. Man this thing is sweet! Bought it for $3600, not a bad price. They are around the $5-6K mark usually around here. Got it home, replaced some filters, skimmed the chuck and off we go. Maybe a re paint and strip down and clean out when I move to the new shop, but for now - it makes $$$
So that's the major machines, got the usual other stuff, welders and pedestal grinders etc. Will show the full shop tomorrow, as its 12am here and I'm buggered.
But basically all that fits in a 20ft shipping container. Barely enough room to fit my moto in before I close the door and lock it haha
Ill post more tomorrow, and some pics of my work. But I gotta go to bed haha
Thanks for looking fellas! Hopefully the pics worked and you can see them