The talk on this thread about production stuff is really quite interesting (especially for those of us who never worked in that domain) but ya know, the OP posted this thread on hobby-machinist.com and was talking about what we do in our hobby shops.
The production engineers and machinists on this forum are such a vital source of learning and their knowledge and experience is such a fantastic resource (
@RaisedByWolves has been a particularly 'good bloke' as we say here in Blighty, to me).
That said, hobby machinist work is a different beast and so any useful answer to the OP's question probably wouldn't make sense in a production environment or even in some cases make much sense to those steeped in a production culture.
There are clearly a few reasons for tool making and machine improvements to be of particular interest to hobby machinists.
One reason is possibly a bit of overcompensation for our small(er) machines and amateur backgrounds. "Hey, we can do just as well as those calloused old hands with their honking big machines and their formal training". So we talk about the high-falutin stuff like scraping and bed-levelling and all tbe stuff that your standard machinist wouldn't necessarily have to worry about.
(Kinda like recreational shooters often have a thing about sniper rifles and precision shooting; a vital resource and one that can really be a force multiplier but ultimately without the PBI and the armoured forces, you're unlikely to take and hold ground
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Even if that is a little bit true, that's only a teeny part of it, of course. There's a long tradition of model engineers focusing on toolmaking and machine improvements. Partly due to not having access to the facilities that a production machine shop has, partly due to limited budgets and space.
But mainly I reckon, due to the simple joy and challenge of taking raw stock (or an unsatisfactory tool) and turning it into a useful tool.
A lot of people on here became interested in tools
primarily and the projects they enable as a secondary (but eventually just as joy bringing) pursuit afterwards.
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