The great heyday of machinists standing in a row at Bridgeport mills talking shit with one another and cranking handles and cutting chips has passed. Today you see a lot of "button monkeys" because what industry really demands today is someone who can zero out a fixture, tweak diameter offsets and change cutters when necessary, and the old school machinists who can calculate a pitch diameter, set a gear hobber and perform a layout with sine plate and gauge blocks are largely gone. Old crusty fellows covered in layout die and wearing overalls grinding lathe tools have largely been replaced by computer geeks in slacks holding p-pap papers... Feh....
Unfortunately, for the most part, I think Nathan hit the nail on the head. I also noticed towards the end of my shop days, "apprentices" being more specialized in what they did, or were being taught to do, like
just running surface grinders, drill press, etc., or............ just pushing the
green button,.............. or, in the case of what is described below......
Nathan the grouchy machinist who crashed a cutter into a work piece today scrapping two days of work and catching major hell for it Machinist.
The big round
RED E-STOP button
ROTFLMAO :thumbup: :thumbup:
There are still apprenticeship programs to be had, but, like Nathan said, not as readily available as they once were. Check out some Injection Mold Shops for a good, well rounded program. Not where they run the molds, you'll probably end up learning repair in places like that. Check out shops that specialize in just making the molds, dies, etc. Check with them every week, at least once, to let them know you're serious. And sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets is something you shouldn't be too proud to do to get that foot in the door. In fact, where I did my apprenticeship that was
always the new apprentices job......... the toilet part :grumpy: I did it .... proudly
And those puppies were clean
