Do You Have A Creative Mind? I Don't!

[Cadillac]

That's a tough one. I kind of believe your born with it to a point and learn more along the way. I was taking screws off the door hinges as soon as I figured out which way to turn the screwdriver, pulled apart the snow blower when my dad was at work and I was left alone in the garage. It finally got put back together in my teenage yrs when I learn how to assemble engines.
Part of it is how you look at things as a whole or break it down to pieces. It all breaks down into parts or pieces.
It's definitely hard don't get me wrong,it's even harder at least for me is to design something and have it all portioned and laid out correct. Meaning fastener sizes, to spacing, enough material for strength and so on. I don't have cad which would greatly help that design aspect but you still have to come up with it? Try reengineering stuff you can use that's what I tend to do saves you some money "hopefully" and you learn a great deal in the process from how it's made to how to make it.

 

[PHPaul]

Creative in the artistic sense? Only in the very broadest sense. My wife tells me all my taste is in my mouth.

Creative in the sense of finding out-of-the-box solutions to challenges? Guilty. Not genius-level certainly, but I can usually find a way around a problem.

I'm not, nor ever will be a "machinist". That drive for perfection is just not in me. I'm a firm believer in "good enough". My joy in life is making useful things out of whatever I have laying around, preferably without spending any money, or at least as little as possible. Right now I'm building a paint shaker for quart and smaller cans. 1/8 HP electric motor that's been up on a shelf in the shop for 30 years. At 3750 RPM, MUCH too fast, so go down the the tool shed by the barn and rummage around...hmmmmm....20:1 right angle gearbox. That should work. 1/2 shaft on the motor, 5/8ths on the gearbox, so off to the lathe to make a coupler. Fire up the drill press with my biggest hole saw and cut a disk out of a scrap of 1/2" aluminum plate for the crankshaft. Back to the lathe to clean it up. Use the mill to drill some cotter pin holes in the crank arm. Use the little lathe to make a delrin bushing for the shaker end. Etc. Etc.

When I'm done, I'll have two full days of fun and Zero dollars in it.

 

[savarin]

Creative? I believe I have a smidgen of that elusive stuff still in there somewhere but often I think I may have used it all up.
For the creative side I usually need the materials actually in my hands to come up with something.
An example is the little steam engine I'm attempting to make. That started when I saw an offcut from a chunk of steel plate and wondered if I could make a one piece crankshaft from it.
There are no plans just some random ideas in my head that may or may not work out but its worth a try.
I'm agonising over how to work out the throttle and reversing gear at present as I have only a very very rough idea of how they work and looking at examples from locomotives I just cant follow them. So a lot of research is required.
For me this is all hobby work as I learnt a long time ago that doing it for a customer means it has to work and then becomes a chore to do it on time.
I do have what I sometimes think is an added bonus in that I have zero format training in this field so I can try anything I want with no training or experience saying it cant be done that way.

 

[C-Bag]

I only got into machining because I had to. It has been a total revelation that its scratched my creative itch.

My grandparents played music when they were young. My mom was an artist, painted and sculpted as a hobby. I wanted to be a cartoonist until the reality of putting food on the table set in and a I realized I wasn't good enough and I HATED sitting at a desk all day. My son makes his living as an online freelance artist. I still play mandolin.

But I'm not sure any of that stuff applies to what I'm doing in the shop. I had gotten to the point with my little home biz I needed to start automating stuff. And nobody makes what I make so there are no off the shelf machines to make it so I bought the lathe and the mill to make those machines. And like this has a way of doing it snowballed into buying old machines cheap and modifying them so I could make the tools to make the tools to make the tools. I also love spending as little as possible and repurposing instead of reinventing the wheel. Luckily it's been at a clip I can handle and there are so many different things in different stages I'm never bored.

 

[Flyinfool]

Creative can mean very different things to different people. Being a design engineer I am always designing mechanical things. I design machinery, beauty is in the proper function. All of my artistic ability's can be put into a thimble with a lot of room left over. I can draw a straight line if I have a straight edge to follow, or a curved line with my compass or french curve. (OK I was designing and engineering long before computers were invented.)

As others have mentioned my machines came about to support other hobbies, needs in those other hobbies are what generate most of the ideas for things to make.

 

[Jubil]

Creative mind? Not me. I can copy things fairly well. My mom was an artist from sewing to ceramics to oil paintings. 2 of my brothers inherited her abilities.
Mechanically, I can hold my own (meaning I can insert round pegs in round holes ).
Wish I would have known or learned to do machine work at a younger age. Don't think I would have tried to make a living at it but I would have had more time to have fun. My wife says I spend time in the shop "playing".
Chuck

 

[C-Bag]

I'm glad I'm not alone is what a guy on another site called "visiting the tools"

 

[westerner]

I do enjoy the problem solving aspect of the work.

This is the heart and soul of my approach. The tools I have acquired are simply the means to this end. That said, I DO enjoy hitting my numbers now and then, but if the problem is solved and the numbers are "close", then "Mission Accomplished!"

 

[Janderso]

Ok, tonight I thought I would use the gray matter and challenge myself. Some of you guys will just roll your eyes but others may be a bit interested to see how I make out.
Internal thread, 1 1/2”, 6 tpi.
Never done it. I cut the bore to the minimum ID 1.425”.
I hope I have that right, I want to end up with 1 1/2” thread depth.
Comments from you eye rollers are welcomed

 

[Bob Korves]

Just go for it, Jeff. It is not different than external threading except it is harder to see what you are doing. You do not really need to see anything in the hole until after the cut is finished. You can use a piece of tape or Sharpie mark on the threading/boring bar to show the end of the thread position when the mark enters the work. You can do the threading from the inside out, which is a whole lot less stressful. Use a really slow speed until YOU get up to speed with it. As with everything machining, practice makes perfect...