moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
- 25,152
- 46,578
The Machinist
- Thread starter Lanx
- Start date
Erronius
<WoW Guild Officer>
- 17,323
- 44,977
Weird thing about where I work: We have a really hard time keeping machinists to run/lead our machine shop
My boss made a comment to me recently that they've been trying to find people that have both machinist experience, as well as CAD experience so that they can handle the drawings side of things.
I'm guessing that anyone that can do both can find work elsewhere that pays more and is less stressful. And if I'm being frank, my company isn't willing to pay prevailing wage for a lot of positions, so this has been an ongoing issue for far too long.
The majority of our staffing issues can be traced back to not hiring enough people overall, existing employees always being overwhelmed with workload, and no one makes what they could be making elsewhere.
So what person with enough experience to run a machine shop, and who can also do CAD, accept a position where the pay isn't top-tier? They don't want to hire someone specifically to do CAD and they don't seem willing to hire another machinist so that the machine shop manager can stay in the office and do CAD and paperwork...that person also needs to help do production, if I understand their workflow correctly (/boggle)
Here's a funny story. We do sales and service for a bunch of industrial products. And one of the factories was selling us parts, as a distributor, with incorrect pricing. So this summer they literally TOLD US what prices were wrong and gave us a date at which the cost was going skyrocket to the correct price.
Seemingly, nobody thought about buying like 50 of a certain pre-machined part beforehand. I'm guessing because they were thinking 'hey we have our own machine shop; we'll just make them later'
So we have existing orders that take that part. But quoted at the old price. If we buy from the product factory at this point, we'd have to eat the new price difference from what we previously quoted. So why not just machine them now? I'm glad you asked.
Turns out (I may have some of this slightly wrong but you'll get the gist of things) this parts mates to a splined shaft, and because we were previously buying the part at a RIDICULOUSLY low (and incorrect) price, they never looked at what it would take to machine it. Then once they went to look at it, they realized that the bore was narrower than a lot of the bores they usually do, and they said that it would be a PITA to do the internal splines. So...they started sending orders for these out to ANOTHER machine shop.
Now, I don't know if that's just going to be their solution going forward or if they're working toward a solution, but I was literally like "WTF is even going on with you guys?"
I don't remember what the ID actually is (3/4"? 1"?) but it would be a similar pattern to this
There's also pieces where it isn't the spline 'b' that is 'squared' but rather it's the portions between those splines (also touching the arrows for the 'd' diameter line) that are squared off
My boss made a comment to me recently that they've been trying to find people that have both machinist experience, as well as CAD experience so that they can handle the drawings side of things.
I'm guessing that anyone that can do both can find work elsewhere that pays more and is less stressful. And if I'm being frank, my company isn't willing to pay prevailing wage for a lot of positions, so this has been an ongoing issue for far too long.
The majority of our staffing issues can be traced back to not hiring enough people overall, existing employees always being overwhelmed with workload, and no one makes what they could be making elsewhere.
So what person with enough experience to run a machine shop, and who can also do CAD, accept a position where the pay isn't top-tier? They don't want to hire someone specifically to do CAD and they don't seem willing to hire another machinist so that the machine shop manager can stay in the office and do CAD and paperwork...that person also needs to help do production, if I understand their workflow correctly (/boggle)
Here's a funny story. We do sales and service for a bunch of industrial products. And one of the factories was selling us parts, as a distributor, with incorrect pricing. So this summer they literally TOLD US what prices were wrong and gave us a date at which the cost was going skyrocket to the correct price.
Seemingly, nobody thought about buying like 50 of a certain pre-machined part beforehand. I'm guessing because they were thinking 'hey we have our own machine shop; we'll just make them later'
So we have existing orders that take that part. But quoted at the old price. If we buy from the product factory at this point, we'd have to eat the new price difference from what we previously quoted. So why not just machine them now? I'm glad you asked.
Turns out (I may have some of this slightly wrong but you'll get the gist of things) this parts mates to a splined shaft, and because we were previously buying the part at a RIDICULOUSLY low (and incorrect) price, they never looked at what it would take to machine it. Then once they went to look at it, they realized that the bore was narrower than a lot of the bores they usually do, and they said that it would be a PITA to do the internal splines. So...they started sending orders for these out to ANOTHER machine shop.
Now, I don't know if that's just going to be their solution going forward or if they're working toward a solution, but I was literally like "WTF is even going on with you guys?"
I don't remember what the ID actually is (3/4"? 1"?) but it would be a similar pattern to this
There's also pieces where it isn't the spline 'b' that is 'squared' but rather it's the portions between those splines (also touching the arrows for the 'd' diameter line) that are squared off
latheboy
Trakanon Raider
- 867
- 1,077
Sounds like they need to have a good think about the way the company is run .. Internal splines are easy, if you have the tooling.
Tooling is expensive if you do every different process though, that's why we have specialist shops.
I do miss working on machines at work.
Tooling is expensive if you do every different process though, that's why we have specialist shops.
I do miss working on machines at work.
- 1
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
- 5,556
- 4,535
I stumbled across this guy's channel and thought of this thread
It came up for me because I've been binging on transistor / logic / cpu arch stuff on youtube for some reason, but I watched the entire first vid.
The game Eco has a lot of mechanical powered craft stations. They don't actually make you hook up belts and shafts like the guy in the video has though. Love how he had all that running along the ceiling.
His shaper looks right out of the game
- 1
Borzak
Silver Baron of the Realm
- 26,459
- 35,150
In college toured a peckerwood mill - small sawmill. It was steam powered and had the belts on the ceiling. They had a flywheel that was probably 10-12 foot in diameter. They would shut down at the end of the day and fire up the next morning and the flywheel would barely still be spinning. Cool stuff.
- 2
latheboy
Trakanon Raider
- 867
- 1,077
Haven't made anything for a while, got excited about streetluges again so knocked one up.
Had a guy help with dimensions, designed in CAD and laser cut and folded at work.. busted out the Tig welder for a few bits and bamm.
Just need a head rest and I can go and scare myself..
- 5
Aamry
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 2,397
- 2,228
So.. I'm learning how to weld. I bought a Tooliom 135A, an auto darkening helmet, and some flux core mig wire, a folding welding table from Harbor Freight, and watched a bunch of youtube videos.
Now... I started with some 17ga sheet steel, because I could buy some pre-cut shit off Amazon. Didn't realize it was easier to work with thicker metal when you start. Burned through some, but managed to fix up the little box. I'll upload a picture of my shit job after grinding the hell out of it later.
Any starter tips for flux welding? Is there like, a cheatsheet/book I can buy with wire feed speeds by metal thickness suggestions?
Now... I started with some 17ga sheet steel, because I could buy some pre-cut shit off Amazon. Didn't realize it was easier to work with thicker metal when you start. Burned through some, but managed to fix up the little box. I'll upload a picture of my shit job after grinding the hell out of it later.
Any starter tips for flux welding? Is there like, a cheatsheet/book I can buy with wire feed speeds by metal thickness suggestions?
Borzak
Silver Baron of the Realm
- 26,459
- 35,150
Almost all of the stuctural welding for heavy structural steel for the shops I've worked with is done with flux core so they don't have to provide/make/consume gas while welding plus they can keep the doors open at times when it's windy. Of course they aren't doing it with HF welders so can't help you. If it's some other alloy or odd plate they switch to another process.
It's also part of the reason it's been changed to spec 3/16" fillet weld UNO for the entire job/sheet to 1/4", which also conincided with going from 3/16" to 1/4" plate as the minimum for misc. crap, not structural.
It's also part of the reason it's been changed to spec 3/16" fillet weld UNO for the entire job/sheet to 1/4", which also conincided with going from 3/16" to 1/4" plate as the minimum for misc. crap, not structural.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
- 15,031
- -1,126
There are charts on the internet for voltage and wire speed for different thicknesses of metal if there isn't one right on your welder. You might want to tweak it a bit depending on what you're doing but for starters just use the settings they tell you to.
You are definitely making it hard on yourself by starting with 17 gauge sheet metal. Get yourself some flat steel that's at least 1/4", maybe dig through the scrap bin at the metal shop and then cut it up into little pieces and weld them all together. Welding is all about muscle memory so the only way to get good at it is to weld a lot. The standard thing you do first in welding classes is to make a "pad" which just means to cut a like 4" x 4" piece of flat steel and cover the whole surface of it with 5 or 6 layers of beads. It's just a reason to do a whole bunch of welding and build your muscle memory.
Mig welding is easy. You will be able to do it much quicker and easier than if you were trying to stick weld, but don't think you can weld just because you make a few nice looking beads on a flat table. You really need to burn a whole lot of rod/wire before you can really say that you can weld. Make sure you're getting penetration as well. The most beautiful weld will break easily if there's no penetration. That said, you don't need to weld very well for most applications. If you are welding something that needs to hold thousands of pounds or someone's life depends on it, then you better weld well, but if you're just building a handrail or something, you can put some chickenshit welds on there, grind them down, and real welders won't respect you but the thing will probably hold together just fine.
Don't buy metal at Ace or Home Depot BTW. You'll go broke doing that shit. Find a real metal shop.
Welding is really fun. It's kind of a super power to be able to build anything you want out of metal. If you're just working in your garage you will for sure need an angle grinder and some grinding wheels, flap wheels, and cutting wheels. If you're going to be doing much I'd invest in a portaband saw in the brand you prefer as well. Makes much cleaner and straighter cuts than you will be able to with your angle grinder. You can even buy a little table to mount it in and use it as a vertical band saw as well.
- 2
Borzak
Silver Baron of the Realm
- 26,459
- 35,150
If you have a steel fab shop close you can ask for some "drop" they will know what you are talking about. Just shit that is soon headed to the recycler. The smaller the shop the better odds of them just giving you something or for next to nothing. Some 1/4" and 3/8" plate, maybe some angle odds and ends. Just ask for "drop" and you will sound like someone looking for something for a project or learning to weld rather than someone trying to get shit to sell to the scrap yard. Some light channel drop is not bad, something like 6 which is 8.2 pounds per foot. Once you get past that and into beams it gets heavy for even short pieces and it's a gigantic heat sink which will suck the heat out of your welding using a 110v home welder resulting in not much of anything.
I've given away near truckloads of shit to people who show up and ask for some drop to practice on while learning to weld. Don't go in a suit lol. Wear jeans and sensible shoes or boots. The last shop I worked with they had acres of drop and every so often when shit was slow the owner had guys load it up onto a trailer to sell to keep them busy rather than just doing it in bulk lol.
The downside, a lot of shops will just flat say no. A lot of shops the guys in the shop will get something out of what they sell it for. The shop I mentioned with acres of drop normally would sell their shit twice a year and have a crawfish boil with the proceeds. Plus the larger the shop the less they want to fuck with it.
I've given away near truckloads of shit to people who show up and ask for some drop to practice on while learning to weld. Don't go in a suit lol. Wear jeans and sensible shoes or boots. The last shop I worked with they had acres of drop and every so often when shit was slow the owner had guys load it up onto a trailer to sell to keep them busy rather than just doing it in bulk lol.
The downside, a lot of shops will just flat say no. A lot of shops the guys in the shop will get something out of what they sell it for. The shop I mentioned with acres of drop normally would sell their shit twice a year and have a crawfish boil with the proceeds. Plus the larger the shop the less they want to fuck with it.
Captain Suave
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
- 5,611
- 9,640
I dunno about how good the welds are, but lasers are a major risk to you and anyone within 50 yards unless you're very careful, controlling the environment, and buying high quality purpose-made PPE. Those beams are infrared and normal welding safety stuff geared towards visible/UV will not work like you might assume. Even low-end 1 kW is more than enough to burn your retina without the right precautions.
Last edited:
- 1
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
- 15,031
- -1,126
Don't know much about them and I've definitely never used one. From what I've heard they seem awesome for specific applications but they're very expensive and only work on very thin materials (3mm max?) and as was said they can be pretty dangerous if not used correctly.
- 1