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Wow, I had no idea this thread existed. Just thought I would introduce myself. I've been working as a machinist for the past 12 years. I guess you would call me the head guy here. We're kind of a niche shop, we have 14 Wire EDM machines, and that's our main focus. I'm not sure how well known the process is outside of the manufacturing trade, so I found a crappy video on Youtube to show what it looks like- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDLZBz2uOL0 Do a lot of tool and die, moldmaking, aerospace, medical, some military. Pretty much anything anyone gives us. We also have 2 big rear end waterjet machines, though I don't really deal with that part of the shop. Also have a laser engraver, which is pretty cool. Other basic machinery too. Drill press, band saw, surface grinder. No manual machines (lathes, mills) really, our main focus is the wires. Anyway, just figured I'd post here. I'm pretty good at what I do, and am pretty familiar with the whole machine shop business in general by now, in case anyone had any questions. I must admit I'm pretty envious of the hand work I've seen in this thread. Don't get much opportunity for stuff like that.
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Oct 15, 2012 14:10
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Leperflesh posted:
That's essentially it, in a nutshell. That pretty blue light is the wire as it starts to cut into the side of that block. We use a .01" diameter brass wire (though you can go as small as like .0005" which is ridiculous). There's a charge put to it and it arcs out with a controlled spark and erodes away metal as the machine moves along the X and Y axes. It's a very accurate, and very slow process. Some of the bigger jobs I've run were in the machine for upwards of 100 hours. We easily hold .001" without even trying, and often work to tolerances of +/-.0001". It's actually much better on smaller parts, I'd say the sweet spot of a thickness you would want to cut would be around 2 inches. It's very good for cutting small details on medical instruments, moldmaking, and tool and die stuff. You can also have the upper and lower heads move independently of each other, causing the wire to tip on an angle, and can do some crazy taper and 4 axis stuff, ie cutting a shape out of a block that's a square on one side and a circle on the other. When I try and explain it to someone with no machining experience, I usually say imagine of those wire cheese cutter things, held vertically. Move wire through cheese in any kind of shape you like. I can't seem to find any videos that really look much different than the one I posted.
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Oct 15, 2012 18:43
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Chauncey posted:Very intricate shapes are possible with edm that are simply not possible or economical with conventional machining or casting. Especially with Wire EDM, which is what we use. Think of it essentially as a. 010" diameter end mill, and the intricate detail you could do with that. And we have a machine that can cut 20" thick. So, a 20" long, 010" diameter end mill. With no tool wear. And don't discount the fact that you can cut any hardness material. It's invaluable, especially in tool and die work.
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Oct 16, 2012 02:51
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SmokeyXIII posted:Do you have to heat treat parts after using the edm process ever? There's generally no reason you need to except in a few cases. Off the top of my head, if we're making a part that will need conventional machining after we're done with it you wouldn't want it to be hard. Or, if you have a big block of A2 or something that you want to cut a part out of but don't want to heat treat the entire block. Edit- Here are a few pictures of a job I'm working on right now. This is one where we cut the blanks, then the customer took them back and did some machining, got them heat treated, and we now have them back again to do a final cut after heat treat. This is the plate we cut the parts out of initially. I just flipped it around in the machine and will be cutting more of what's show clamped onto the table. It's gonna look like swiss cheese when we're done.  And here are the 3 stages. The 1st picture goes right to left, the 2nd one goes left to right, it got flipped somehow.   Also, I apologize if I'm making GBS threads up the thread. Not sure if you guys are interested in this stuff or not 
A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 11:42
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Ambrose Burnside posted:IRT that EDM wire thing- why do you use brass instead of copper or something else conductive? Is it a material property thing or a conductivity/weird electric poo poo I don't understand thing? You can actually get copper wire, but it's really expensive. I honestly don't know what it would be used for. You can also get other weird alloys of wire, like molybdenum. Which is not fun to use at all. Also, I think you might be confusing the two EDM processes. There's conventional/sinker/ram EDM (different names for the same thing), where you machine a n electrode, usually out of graphite, to a specific shape and essentially plunge it down into the piece and it makes that shape. With wire EDM, which is what I do, it's totally different. You have a spool of wire , and the wire is constantly fed off of it. It goes through a bunch of rollers, then through an upper head, through the workpiece, then through the lower head, and is collected in the back where it's just scrap brass at that point and can't be reused. There is constant tension kept on the wire with servo controlled rollers, so you avoid vibration and the like. With wire, the profile you're cutting has to go all the way through the part. You can't do blind holes or pockets. If you want to cut, say, a square pocket in the middle of a block, you need to have a starting hole for the wire to be fed through for it to start from. We have 5 small hole edm machines that we use to put start holes in. These are essentially ram edms that use long brass tubes as electrodes. We have electrode sizes ranging from .013" to .25", so we can put really small start holes for really small details that need to go in the middle of a block. This happens a lot with injection molds. With these machines, you CAN run into issues with taller parts, with the electrode walking, especially the smaller diameter ones. This can be an issue with small cavities because you end up with part of the hole showing down inside, which is usually a no-no. Slung Blade posted:Post away, always cool to see rare or unusual techiniques. Thanks! Just want to say though, wire edm isn't too unusual anymore, at least in the manufacturing trade. The technology has been around since the late 70s. While it's obviously still not as commonplace as conventional machining, it's definitely more prevalent than it used to be. Actually, cheesy as it is, this video seems pretty clear on explaining it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBueWfzb7P0 A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 01:30
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Ambrose Burnside posted:Oh, thanks. Yeah, I was combining the two in my head, I got it. Haha, yea, we've got a bunch of stuff like that around the shop. It's fun to do once you learn enough to know what you're doing.
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Oct 17, 2012 01:53
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Gwamp posted:I have a drop bandsaw that I use for cutting angle iron and for doing most of my other cuts. I was actually going to suggest this, but I wasn't sure how common it would be for someone to have one of these at home.
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Oct 17, 2012 04:13
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Goin back to the coins for a minute. You're asking a lot of questions, but just want to ask, are you simply looking for a die to stamp out round pieces of metal? Or are you looking for something to emboss the face of a coin with? I'm that EDM guy you were referring to, and I could easily make something like this. But even if you had a die, what you would actually use to stamp and/or emboss the material? Hydraulic press or something of the like? Also, if you're looking for some way to get a design onto the end of something in order to emboss a coin, I also have a laser engraver which is pretty suitable for that kind of thing. Though it may look too "perfect", if that makes any sense.
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Nov 17, 2012 16:02
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I know I kind of mentioned it earlier in the thread, but if anyone needs some kind of intricate shape (such as a makers mark) put onto something, if you supplied the artwork, I've got all kinds of scrap that could be engraved and used as a punch.
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Nov 24, 2012 03:13
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Ambrose Burnside posted:How much would you want to do something like that? I'm not familiar with how much prepwork and tailored attention it would entail. If I could be supplied the artwork I could do it for the cost of shipping, maybe a couple more bucks if you were feeling generous. It's actually fairly simple if I have the artwork.
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Nov 24, 2012 03:39
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quote:Dang. D'you have PMs? I will most definitely take you up on this. Yea I have PMs.
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Nov 24, 2012 15:00
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Ambrose Burnside posted:I bought titanium I remember when I thought Titanium was cool. Now I have like 10 pounds of scrap Titanium lying around our shop like it ain't no thing.
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Dec 4, 2012 02:49
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Random Number posted:Everyone makes that joke the instant they find out reamers exist, some with bores, occasionally mandrels. Making stamping dies at work, there are components called strippers. Heard all those drat jokes too.
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Mar 12, 2013 01:50
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Eikre posted:Does anyone have a good online machine shop sort of a place where I can order a piece of custom-milled metal? I work in a job shop and we do water jet cutting. Sounds like it would be perfect. 1/8 brass sounds about right. If you have a cad file I can get a quote for you. You can email me at wdevine07@hotmail.com
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May 16, 2013 16:54
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Ha, well unfortunately I can't claim to have done that by hand. I have a laser engraver at work I was able to do it with. Ambrose was able to send me a vector image of the mark and I did some laser magic and engraved some pieces of heat treated A2. Though, I think that was probably the first time I've done something that detailed on the laser and was pretty impressed with the resolution it was capable of, especially on the smaller one.
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Jun 12, 2013 01:48
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Measuring stuff Hey fellow machine shop guy!  I'm the foreman/production manager at a shop that does Wire EDM, Waterjet, and Laser Engraving.Will definitely agree with you on the mitutoyo stuff, that's all we have in the shop. I definitely prefer the friction thimbles, like these as I feel it's much easier to do a one handed measurement. I use them to pretty regularly check tolerances of +/-. 0001", though for the price, that really is a steal on the ones you posted, I might have to pick up a couple sets. And for calipers, I really like the digimatics, which are only used for checking +/- .005 stuff, but they're really nice and have held up well. I would imagine for most people in this thread, a good set of calipers would be all they need.
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Feb 1, 2014 00:27
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Hey, we have a vision inspection system! It's a different company though, VisionX. The website is poo poo, but the machine is incredible. We have this big rear end one here, the 24"x24". We use it a mostly for inspecting really big waterjet parts or wire edm parts with really complex geometry. The CAD overlay system is really cool.
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Feb 1, 2014 04:44
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:That 24 x 24 is a pretty impressive looking system. What kind of accuracy does it produce, and just as importantly, what did it cost? Just like our regular comparator, I really don't trust it to realistically measure tighter then maybe .0005“. Anything more than that and you need to take it with a grain of salt. You can write programs on this one too, it's pretty cool watching it pick up a datum on one side of a 20 inch part and seeing it jog over and measure a feature to it on the other side. Cost wise, I think it was around 85k, mainly because it's so big.
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Feb 1, 2014 10:23
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A guy I work with lost a fingernail when he brushed a running surface grinder wheel. He now has a toenail for a fingernail
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Feb 9, 2014 20:43
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:We have surface grinders like that at work... would have taken a long time to take that much material off though. Man, I'm making a stamping tool for a customer at work, need to wire like 45 different tiny rear end punches all out of CPM. That poo poo sucks to work with. Easier than carbide at least.
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Feb 13, 2014 12:14
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glyph posted:E: hi thread, I'm a jack of all trades tech in a physics lab at the local University. Out of curiousity, if you don't mind me asking, what University? I only ask because we do prototype work and student project stuff for some of the local schools.
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Feb 17, 2014 04:04
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glyph posted:Cornell. Plasma lab. Ah ok, nice. Looks like you've got a nicely stocked shop there. We mainly do stuff for the plasma center at MIT, and other mostly physics related projects.
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Feb 17, 2014 06:48
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Haha yea it's actually not all that uncommon either from what I've seen. Pretty cool though.
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Feb 17, 2014 19:12
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The Proc posted:Isn't that indicator reading 0.0015" ? Ha, I was going to say the same thing. It is.
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Feb 21, 2014 11:11
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sixide posted:I don't know about a forge, but if you want to save the coals try spreading it out. Would be best on a metal sheet or similar that can suck the heat out. Sinker EDM would work well for this, though it could be expensive. Wire EDM won't work if you want a blind pocket.
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May 3, 2014 21:25
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Wicaeed posted:Maybe related to this thread: Older post I know, but I may be able to help you out, depending what you're looking for. If it's just a flat plate with some slots and holes, and you can sketch up what you want, shoot me a PM.
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Jun 30, 2014 03:38
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Squashy Nipples posted:Do we have any machinists in the house? I need some custom CNC milling. Small job, but I'll pay decent money. Got a CAD file or some kind of drawing? We only do Wire EDM but I may be able to get it done for you somewhere else. Also, where are you located?
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Oct 1, 2014 21:35
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kafkasgoldfish posted:In about 7 hours you went from not knowing what the latest and best cad was to having a decent model completed on software that cost $4000 and isn't sold directly through the web? Share your secrets. I'm desperate for Solidworks, Alibre is becoming very frustrating but I haven't found any other way to get it. Not gonna do I've found the tutorials and help system built in to be pretty drat nice. I've surprised myself with what I've been able to pull off without any actual training.
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Oct 1, 2014 21:56
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kafkasgoldfish posted:You referring to Alibre? It gets the job done and is probably the best parametric cad out there for hobbyist no doubt. But I can't help but get jealous when I see how certain things in Solidworks take half as many clicks as Alibre and their assemblies are soooo much nicer. Haha, no I was actually talking about Solidworks. We have a few seats at work I have to figure out how to use occasionally.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:55
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The only problem with form taps is if you break one, they can be a real bitch to remove without damaging the threads. Fluted taps you can usually just burn down the middle and it will break into pieces. God drat I hate burning out taps.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:44
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Just wanted to share this extrusion die component I've been working on for a couple days. It was probably one of the most complicated wire jobs I've done in my 13 years here, though it may look deceptively simple. Thought it looked pretty neat!   Sorry for the vertical video. http://youtu.be/1d3HxcmQ8Pg
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Oct 7, 2014 19:40
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Bad Munki posted:That reminds me, question about extrusions: I look at, say, aluminum extrusions, and sometimes they'll be hollow. How the heck does the extrusion work in that case? Like, in order for there to be a hollow space in the extrusion, there has to be part of the die at the exit side blocking that area. But of course something has to hold that block in place, so the material being extruded would have to go "around" one or more support type structures and then rejoin on the other side. Does the immense pressure involved just force the material to bond on the exit side of the support as if there is no seam as it travels through the die? I'm not sure if I can explain it well either. An extrusion die generally consists of a bunch of plates stacked on top of each other, going from a big hole on one side where the plastic goes in, to the final shape on the other. One of the plates in the middle of the stack would be called a spider plate. In the center of the plate we cut a pocket that you press fit a mandrel into. This mandrel is the same size as the inside of the finished hollow piece. Around the pocket that the mandrel is pressed into are pockets, so that the mandrel is really only being held in by little legs. Looking at it straight on it looks like the mandrel is the middle of a spider and the little legs holding the mandrel pocket there are the spider legs. So yea you were pretty much right, after plastic or whatever flows through those pockets, it comes back together around the mandrel. There's plenty of time and it's more than hot enough that it's seamless by the time it reaches the exit of the die. I have no idea if this makes any sense to you.
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Oct 7, 2014 20:11
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Diggus Bickus posted:That's a hell of a piece. I'd love to know what it looks like on the inside. Well, we're a job shop, so most of the time I don't actually see what the end product does. The company it's for makes microwave absorbers and some other weird stuff, so I can only speculate they're extruding some weird material. I've seen extrusion dies like this in the past with the multiple pockets going into one when they're actually running different colors/types of plastic but want to combine them on the final part somehow. I would guess it's either that or it's just the way their extruder is set up, with 4 lines that would line up to the back of the die. Kasan posted:CAM Stuff Yea, like Karia said, I would recommend some kind of CAM program too. I have no problem writing a lot of programs at the machine, but when I start getting into stuff a little more complicated where I need to trig out the endpoints of intersecting radii and poo poo, I just use our CAM system, it's not worth the trouble trying to figure it out. Karia posted:That's awesome. Did you drill four separate angled pilot holes to start the wire in each pocket? Yup, though I used our hole popper. The start holes were only .025" in diameter. No fancy 4 axis hole poppers either, just a sine vise and some math. Bleh.
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Oct 8, 2014 12:11
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ReelBigLizard posted:For spring steel you want HSSCO (Cobalt alloy) bits, M35-grade is good, M42 is better. Was just going to suggest this too. We have a water jet, sounds like it would make quick work of that. Edit: whoops should've kept reading.
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Jan 30, 2015 01:54
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ReelBigLizard posted:It got me wondering about a "waterjet drill press" type device. An ultra high pressure pump and toolhead for a waterjet cutter without all the cnc stuff, just mounted to a pillar drill type press with a deep bucket full of water underneath. Just set a diameter, bring the table up to the right height above the piece and press go and it moves in a circle of that diameter. You would need sacrificial material at the bottom of the bucket so you don't go right through, of course. You could probably just keep throwing your offcuts in there though, all the different angles would do a good job of deflecting the jet. I think the big issue with something like that (aside from the obvious, haha) is that I think like 75% of the cost and maintenance on a waterjet is the pump. At that point you may as well just get the cnc poo poo too.
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Feb 1, 2015 10:21
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Pagan posted:It rusts, though. Does stainless require a surface treatment to make it "stainless" 400 series stainless is ferrous so it will rust. I guess rust resistant would be a better thing to call it. Edit: is ferrous the right word? As much as I work with this stuff day to day I'm not sure about the actual makeup of some of the stuff. Either way, 400 stainless can rust, yes. A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Mar 14, 2015 |
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Mar 14, 2015 21:03
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Pagan posted:That would make more sense than some exotic or expensive alloy. So, how does one keep stainless from rusting? Well 300 stainless pretty much won't rust. Not sure how common that stuff would in scrap yards though. At work, we just use wd40. Not sure about a long term solution. I would think as long as you keep it dry it should mostly be okay, maybe just get some surface rust. Any tooling we make we generally use 420 or 17-4 as it doesnt rust too much and is just all around nice and solid.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:43
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I know this isn't really in the scope of this thread, but I figure I'll throw it out here anyway. Our shop has two Waterjet machines. In the past 5 years, we've had LOT of trouble finding good people to run them. A lot of people who say they want to work hard and work a lot of hours and made decent money, but when it comes down to it they decide that loving around on their phone, or staying home sick, or just not getting the work done is more important. We're in southeast Massachusetts. Just looking for someone with an interest in this kind of thing, with a good work ethic (this seems to be the hardest part). We train on the job, and once you get going you would work pretty independently. Anyway, sorry if this is a bad place for this, and I know it's a long shot, but my boss is going out of his mind trying to find some good employees. I'd do it myself but I'm running a different part of the shop.
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Mar 20, 2015 13:30
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Rime posted:It's largely bigotry from crusty old men who didn't have the convenience of calculators in school, and think that anyone who uses one is by default too stupid to be worth hiring. I'm actually going to disagree with you. While that may be part of it, it's definitely not that way here. All we want is someone who can read a blueprint, check some parts, and have a good work ethic. We've gone through I think 15 people in the past 5 years. People just stop showing up, spend 10 hours doing 3 hours worth of work, decide that their significant other texting them about some stupid poo poo is more important, spending an hour in the bathroom, coming to work stoned, all sorts of stupid poo poo. It also doesn't help that waterjet is kind of a niche thing, it's not something the average person would learn if they go to classes for CNC machining. Even though we train on the job, it's just so hard to find someone who's willing to put their nose to the grindstone and learn some poo poo, even if it's hard work sometimes. It's loving aggravating, and I feel like an old man going KIDS THESE DAYS when I'm only 31. I was running this place when I was 18 fresh out of high school. I'm no genius but I'm not dumb either, but I don't mind working hard. As for pay, someone off the street who may have looked at a blueprint in high school or a previous job, and doesn't seem like a total moron, probably start around 12 bucks. If you actually have a little experience, maybe around 15-16 bucks. If we found someone who could actually come in and start running the machines with little training, ie they ran waterjets somewhere else, they'd probably be at $20+ an hour. We work 50+ hours a week here, so there's overtime to be had too. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I came here while still in high school, no college, and am making eh, well, closer to 100k than 50. I should clarify my previous post, I talked to me boss, he doesn't want to talk to someone if they don't at least have some experience reading prints. I realize this was a long shot anyway, but it's getting real old hiring people and they're gone within 6 months because they can't commit. We're a small shop (like 10 guys), but I think it's an awesome place to work for the right person, someone who can think on their own and work independently without someone standing over their shoulder. Thanks for the leads though, I might check out the makerspace stuff, and that Massmep I think I actually know about, they've been contacting us for some kind of support I think. I know this is a huge rant/derail, I didn't think I had so much to say about this. It just drives me crazy seeing the opportunity that someone could have running our waterjets, getting valuable experience and making good money. If I was 18 again I'd be all over that poo poo.
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Mar 20, 2015 18:32
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Shim Howard posted:Uppercut, what's your schedule typically like? 7 days x 8 for three months straight is rapidly becoming a living hell. 7-5 m-f. Occasionally a few hours on a saturday.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:09
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