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Thread: Machinest help

  1. #21
    Boolit Buddy

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    To the OP: Bill send me a PM and I'll give you my phone number. Easier to communicate that way.

  2. #22
    Boolit Master



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    PM sent

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sleeping Dog View Post
    As I work with more of the details of shooting, and especially swaging, it has become obvious that I want to develop some skills with my lathe.

    Following up on Just Bill's request, are there any tutorials for a brand new metal worker?
    Zillions, and that will work well for some people, and not so well for others. I got my 7x10 HF mini-lathe in 2008, and muddled along with books and videos, and didn't accomplish much. In 2015 I took a class at my local technical college (Francis Tuttle Portland campus, for those who are local to me) and going mostly very much part time. I'm still in the class, now 6 years later, though I don't think 2020 should really count. One of the things you need very badly to learn is the feel of a correctly held caliper or micrometer. Not having that was quite a bit of my problem. I couldn't get accurate readings until I'd been doing it in class for a while. Not everyone will have that problem. Mr. Pete222, AvE, Abom77, Joe Pieczynski, Blondihacks, and a bunch of others on YouTube are all folks you need to look up, and follow. Also, gishooter's right about the advantages of taking a class, too. YMMV, as they say, but it's worth checking out both tracks. Despite the troubles I've been having with the one part I keep messing up, my instructor says I'm turning into a decent machinist. If I can, you can! Something we did in class, and that helped me tremendously, was to get a set of gauge blocks, and practice measuring stuff on them. You get blocks from . A good quality set is accurate to .00005" or better. Get to where you can measure to within .0001" accurately and consistently, and you'll be doing just fine. https://www.amazon.com/HFS-GRADE-GAU...dp/B00VQUYVC6/ is a better set than I have personally, right now, but not as good as the Fowler set they have in class. The set I have is a 36 piece set of round blocks, like the one cdcotools.com has for $55. Not as many pieces to practice on, but small enough to carry in my toolbox that I take to class. Theirs is called a Space Block 36 PC Set. Amazon has those, too, a bit more expensive than CDCO, where CDCO is a bit more expensive for their Gauge Block set, but the tolerance of them is .0000005". Take the class, and you don't need to buy as much equipment up front. My class, we needed a 6" dial caliper, and some books, total cost when I started was a bit over $100. Probably around $150 now. I bought a cheap dial caliper at the time. Good enough now that I am looking very hard at better calipers and micrometers, but I tested all of mine with their gauge blocks, and all of them were more accurate than I was at the time.

    Bill

  4. #24
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by gishooter View Post
    School trained machinist here. Started 11 years ago. Initially tried self-learning via You-tube videos and reading. Finally took a night class (one semester) at the community college and saw the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Wound up taking 5 more classes part time, then went back to school full time.
    My advice: Sign up for part time/night classes at your local community college. Very cheap and you will learn a ton. Second, find a mentor. Sign up for one of the home shop machinist forms online. And look for local members.
    If anyone is in the Dane County area of Wisconsin. Pm me and I'll be glad to help you out.
    All good advise. Yahoo killed off all of their groups late last year, but a bunch of them moved to groups.io, including many of the metalworking and machinist groups. Go here to register so you can join some of the groups:https://groups.io/register Lots of good info, not all of which is strictly machining-related.

    I own a few groups, moderate a few more, I'm a member of 50 groups, and there are hundreds I'm not yet involved with.

    I own (co-own, actually, so there's someone else to keep things going when I can't anymore) Metal-Shapers-and-Planers, Mini-Lathes, Mini-Mills, and several others. They're good places to find info, and sometimes local mentors.

    Bill

  5. #25
    Boolit Buddy

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    Sent you a reply with my number. Will be doing some work in shop this afternoon.

  6. #26
    Boolit Buddy

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCf9YvM70NA

    Scrounge, here is my program I went to.

    I highly recommend getting an account at KBC tools, Sussex tool supply, or MSC. I know MSC offers a very good student discount. You can also usually order thru your schools account also.

  7. #27
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by gishooter View Post
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCf9YvM70NA

    Scrounge, here is my program I went to.

    I highly recommend getting an account at KBC tools, Sussex tool supply, or MSC. I know MSC offers a very good student discount. You can also usually order thru your schools account also.
    https://www.francistuttle.edu/progra...logy-machining

    That's my program, although what I'm doing is a subset of the full CNC program. I'm strictly doing precision manual machining. That is the first block for the CNC course. My course was $1800, the full CNC course was $4200 when I started in 2015. Don't know what it is now. I'm a Desert Storm vet, so got a tuition waiver. No cost to me except the books and dial caliper. I believe I spent a grand total of $86 for the required materials. Though I've gotten quite a bit of non-required stuff, too. As I say on the metalworking boards I hang out on, "Hi! My name is Bill, and I'm a toolohaulic!"

    You'll note that we have a lot of older machines, which has been good for me. My home machines are also mostly older, and a great deal smaller. I love the Clausing Colchester 13" lathe, though they have CC 15" lathes, too. I'm pretty sure I couldn't get either of them in my shop successfully, as I don't think the slab would handle even the "little" CC 13" machine. It's only 2700#. My biggest lathe, the SB Heavy 10L, is only about 1000#, and my big drill press about 900#. Everything else is smaller. Usually a lot smaller.

    Here in the OKC area we have a KP Supply. They also have a location in Tulsa, and Wholesale Tool has a facility there, too. I've bought stuff from KP Supply here. Tulsa is about a 2 hour drive, Grizzly, in Missouri, is only about a 5hour drive. I get flyers from MSC & Travers, among others, as well. One of the cool things here in Oklahoma, there is an old foundry in Guthrie, about half an hour from my home, where they hold the Southwestern Ironworkers Faire every May, though last year's was canceled, and this year might be, too. It's a swapmeet for metal and wood workers, and I've gotten a lot of small bits and bobs there. My birthday is in May, so a pocketful of whatever money I can scavenge from the budget and a trip to Guthrie is my usual birthday present to myself.

    There is also a Metals Supermarket here, and they've been a good place to get some metal, and I have another metal yard a bit over a mile from my house. It's changed names & management several times since I've been here, so not sure what it's called now, but it's close by and they usually have off-cuts. I'm having a fair amount of fun as it is, and if my back would behave a bit, I'd be having more.

    Bill

  8. #28
    Boolit Bub
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    Good advice in here. I’m going to see if my community college offers these kind of classes...

  9. #29
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    I went through the school almost 20 years ago. I rarely use anything I learned in school on a day to day basis. I learned a lot more from working in different shops.

    My advice would be take a class or two for the fundamentals and then attempt to find a mentor. Going through the whole school curriculum would be a waste in my opinion for a hobby or really even to work in the field. I honestly prefer to train machinists with no working knowledge but with the aptitude to understand and learn.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  10. #30
    Boolit Master



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    The nearest class is booked and has a waiting list for only 6 people, fall term has not been finalized.

  11. #31
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by just bill View Post
    The nearest class is booked and has a waiting list for only 6 people, fall term has not been finalized.
    I had to wait a couple of months, but it was worth it. If you're not going full-time, a bit of a drive isn't that bad. I go two days a week. When I was working, it was a 75mile round trip, home to work, work to school, and back to home. Don't have to go to work anymore, so it's down to about 50 miles, these days. Friend of mine was going to a school an hour's drive one-way on a toll road from his house. Of course, that was a class where they were actually making a falling block rifle in class. My class you can't work on firearms parts.

    Bill too.

  12. #32
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    I think finding a local machine shop to 'volunteer' your time to help sweep the floors. You will learn so much with a good mentor, you will wonder why you waited so long to ask. I've helped several young people through the years. Just don't show up thinking you know how things are done, you will have your a$$ handed to you. After a year or so everyone of them ended working in the city for much more than I could pay them. I've come to expect it and am upfront with anyone who asks and applies themselves. Most important is to learn how to listen and ask well formed questions. By well formed questions I mean you have thought it through and applied the things you were already taught. Nothing worse or a quicker way to the door than forgetting what you were just taught.
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  13. #33
    Boolit Master



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    Quote Originally Posted by rboeser View Post
    I think finding a local machine shop to 'volunteer' your time to help sweep the floors. You will learn so much with a good mentor, you will wonder why you waited so long to ask. I've helped several young people through the years. Just don't show up thinking you know how things are done, you will have your a$$ handed to you. After a year or so everyone of them ended working in the city for much more than I could pay them. I've come to expect it and am upfront with anyone who asks and applies themselves. Most important is to learn how to listen and ask well formed questions. By well formed questions I mean you have thought it through and applied the things you were already taught. Nothing worse or a quicker way to the door than forgetting what you were just taught.
    I tried that route, none of them needed any thing like that.

  14. #34
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    I can understand that because for every person that was serious about learning, there were 5 or so dingalings that already thought they knew everything. The way things are now, a shop must be sure to trust the person hanging there to learn because a machine shop is serious business, dangerous and literally an accident waiting to happen the very first time you get distracted.

    All I can say is try going back, or just stopping by. Just don't show up every day and become a pain.
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  15. #35
    Boolit Master



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    Quote Originally Posted by rboeser View Post
    I can understand that because for every person that was serious about learning, there were 5 or so dingalings that already thought they knew everything. The way things are now, a shop must be sure to trust the person hanging there to learn because a machine shop is serious business, dangerous and literally an accident waiting to happen the very first time you get distracted.

    All I can say is try going back, or just stopping by. Just don't show up every day and become a pain.
    I worked for an atomic research machine shop many years ago. I had the jobs as follows, clean the lathes, segregate the metal shavings for the salvage yard, replace coolent as necessary and operate the doall saw for rough shaping for projects. Most of the lathe operators were navy trained and thought they were hot stuff and worked in the clean room. I mostly hung in the dirty shop until time to clean the lathes or do the slj jobs, but that didn't help to much as a reference to get into a shop.

  16. #36
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    Wow, our shop is a small operation compared to an atomic research machine shop. I'm guessing there are few small machine shops around these days.

    Our shop is an odd mix of machines. We build race engines from quartermidget to late models on dirt, pulling tractors, farm and heavy equipment. Of course a fair share of general engine machining for everyday cars and trucks for local mechanic shops. We grind flywheels, balance crankshaft rotating assemblies, all forms of welding, glass bead blasting, bore and surface engine blocks and cylinder heads. We have 4 Bridgeport mills, 2 of them converted to specialized dedicated purposes, a nice gunsmith lathe, surface grinder and many small machine tools we have made or converted from other machines to help us improve our quality and efficiency.

    We do small lot manufacturing for a few local businesses that utilize us for short runs. We repair production machinery for the local small businesses.

    We can Waterjet up to 5 ft x 12 ft parts and up to 6" thick tool steel on a an old Ingersoll Rand Waterjet that we completely rebuilt and upgraded the entire drive and computer system. That machine has been working for almost everyday for 10 years.

    All of this equipment gathered over 40 years and operated by 2 brothers who are self taught. Our education was paid for by us trying, doing and dreaming. We come from a very much lower middle class upbringing that taught us that hard work was required to make the life we wanted. We have many good friends that have trusted us for their repair needs and several have helped along the way.

    The very last thing I ever want to see is someone coming to the shop and saying "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help".

    There are small shops in the more rural areas of the Midwest. I have no idea what the coast people are doing. The City people are welcome but I prefer they go back to the City at night and leave me alone.

    We pay WAY to much in taxes, work hard and play harder. One of the few pieces of life advice I have is take some time to spend with your wife and kids when they are young, they both grow up and leave if you are spending all of your time working and ignoring them.

    Back to learning about machine operation and the thought required to successfully complete anything. Try to find a small machine shop locally. It may not be what your preconceived notion of what it should be. You will still learn basics and that knowledge can never be taken from you.
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