Has a friend or relative been responsible for your beginnings in this hobby?

My father and mother were refugees and came to Australia in the 60's. My father was a good student but had to start full time work when he was 14 to help support the family. He worked in the building trade as an apprentice framer, then completed an apprenticeship in cabinet making while also completing his education in diesel and petrol mechanics. He went on to complete his certification as a master builder. He is a resourceful guy and always had a lathe, grinder, drill press and a multitude of other tools.

Despite being a lousy teacher and somewhat short-tempered, I used to stand at a distance and try understand what he was doing. This was how I learned the basics of machining, brazing, welding, carpentry, mechanics and prototyping. Since we lived on a farm and were self sufficient, it meant that we needed to repair and build most everything we needed to have to keep the farm running.

When I was dating my wife-to-be, I explained to her that in time, I will buy all the tools I need to be somewhat useful to the community I lived in so it was no surprise to her when we moved to Norway that I began to save and accumulate machines and tools. Living in Australia, it was very difficult to find old iron in good condition. Most everything I had seen came from the Asian market or was so expensive I couldn't afford it. Since moving to Norway, I have managed to put together the workshop of my dreams with small industrial grade machines. I have also had the chance to play with machining projects and repair these machines.

I owe it to my dad who inspired me to be a useful person who can think out of the box, be resourceful, dependable and never allow a situation to beat me.

Paul.
 
Mine is not so glamorous, while growing up, in HS and after worked in several shops that did engine machine work, and with several machine shops that did work for us, but then joined and retired from the USAF. Was not until several years ago when my Father in law passed and I got his Sherline lathe and mill, that a started doing this stuff again. Wife purchased another Sherline lathe for me, Then I purchased a 10x24, and working from there.
 
All great stories above, Thanks for sharing.
I was inspired from the beginning by by my father and my older brother who were both very resourceful in mechanics and electronics. My dad was a radio operator and IED maker in the Polish resistance during WWII, There he learned electrical and mechanical improvisation and developed a "get it to work no matter what" mentality. He imparted those skills to my older brother and they both imparted them to me. My "playground" was a NYC salvage yard located under the Brooklyn Bridge, a wonderland of junked Police cars, Fire engines, hospital, office and equipment of all kinds. My friends and I would sneak in after school and climb the piles of scrap, blow stuff up with M-80s and Blockbusters (sometimes homemade) or just dump stuff in the river, for fun. When I got into my tween-teen years I would go there and take stuff apart to learn how it worked,"liberate" some parts and build it into all kinds of contraptions, electric go-kart, solenoid machine gun, Frankenstine style HV display, etc. Yeah, I was that geek kid...
I took wood shop In High school (they didn't offer metal) and wound up being a teachers aid. Upon graduation, my shop teacher told me there was nothing more he could teach me, that I was a natural craftsman, but whatever I did, I shouldn't go into woodworking as a career, as it was a very tough business...
When I was 20 I did an apprenticeship under my uncle, who was a master tool and diemaker. He would produce parts from his garage shop that looked like they came out of an aerospace plant, to this day I am in awe of his work. He taught me most of my machining and metalworking skills. After that, I enrolled in NY City Technical College, in their electromechanical engineering program. However, I left after 2 years as I was already making more money working part time doing small painting & carpentry contracts, than they said I could hope to make working full time after graduation, but I did learn a lot there. At 22, I traded a custom built cabinet for my first lathe a 9" South Bend, which I still have. I followed the "easy" money into general contracting and custom woodworking. In 1991 I bought into a coop wood shop, one of the other members had a Bridgeport and another had a DoAll bandsaw, I had the lathe and some welding equipment, so together we had decent metalworking capabilities. Through those years, I practiced my machining skills building jigs, specialized woodworking machines and custom hardware. I left the coop in 06, As my shop teacher warned me, It's a very tough business... I worked for several years as construction manager and am now back to general contracting. In 2012, I bought a second home in upstate NY where I am currently building my dream shop. I have since acquired, a Mill, a surface grinder and a couple of more lathes... And more good stuff to come!

Eddy
 
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I see a pattern here, my grandfather (moms dad) was in my eyes a "master everything". He worked and lived and in Juarez Mexico. He was a superintendent for an American owned factory that processed cotton brought in by train spur. The place was old when I first visited prolly around age six. I still remember the awesome smell of the place. The cotton would be auger fed into machines that stripped the cotton and created large banded bails then shipped back to the US. The seed continued to several crushing machines and the oil extracted/processed and placed in 55 gallon drums. The crushed seed then went on to cook and compacted to create some sort of livestock feed (nothing wasted). This process was where the pleasant aroma came from.
My grandfather had a modest shack/office with a metal drafting table, slide rules along with fair amount of Starrett tooling and a technical library of vintage manuals. I would visit him every summer and as I got older I would spend the day along side never bored. I remember once he was on the phone and quickly ended the call based on a frequency change he picked up on. His shack was a stand alone building away from the main factory and he still picked up on subtle anomalies, amazing to me then and now. My grandfather could weld, machine, design tools/machines, rewind motors, improve existing equipment and invented many things during his lifetime. He was not formally educated in this field but was very intelligent and knew how to use all his resources. His math was over the top too.

At age 14 during a Thanksgiving break, he learned I was in beginners machine shop in HS and put me to the test. He made a deal with me, he sketched up a little project at the kitchen table on a napkin. It was my first paying job that I can remember. It required multiple diameters OD/ID and one external taper. He told me that if I could turn it to tolerance, he would gift me a Starrett Micrometer. Once we arrived to the plant, he let me choose what lathe to use, they had two very old machines but where impeccably clean. I then scrounged for the stock required. It took me most of the day but I was more concerned with impressing my "Abuleo" as I used his personal wooden toolbox/tools. He was so proud of me, his eyes began to sweat (as mine are as I type). He gave me a Starrett No.224 and a slide rule. I have used the mic over the years and it's a nice instrument. The slide rule is just a memento of my hero. He past away in 1988 my son was one month old so it made it easier for me to cope with my loss.

The handwritten note is in Spanish although my "Abuelito" was fluent in english.
Translation: Accept this gift as a remembrance of your "gramps" Nacho, 6th of November 1979, Juarez,Mexico...and Merry Christmas.
IMG_2106.JPGIMG_2107.JPG
Man it still hurts to thinks about my grandfathers last days. His lungs failed from many years of no PPE and smoking, but that was the norm those days. I credit my "abuelito" for my desire to work with my hands and continue to learn. My mother and father where also responsible with unconditional support paying HS shop fees, signing papers allowing me to enlist in the Navy at seventeen. My mom visits a few times throughout the year and always finds time to hang out with me in the shop. She thinks I'm special like my grandfather, but then again she's my mother;). I'm so far behind my grandfather but I'm giving it 110%. Wow! Part of me is sad reminiscing , but the awesome memories outweigh the sad fact of life...Life is short, embrace it, and never forget those special people that made it all possible. In closing, I want to acknowledge my wife of 30 years who's unconditional love/support for my quest of knowledge has resulted in a considerable investment. She says I work too much, but for me its a purpose I truly love/enjoy.
Thank you for allowing me to share a small timeline of my blessed life.
Turn and Burn!
Peace,
Paco
 
firestopper said:
I see a pattern here, my grandfather (moms dad) was in my eyes a "master everything". He worked and lived and in Juarez Mexico. He was a superintendent for an American owned factory that processed cotton brought in by train spur. The place was old when I first visited prolly around age six. I still remember the awesome smell of the place. The cotton would be auger fed into machines that stripped the cotton and created large banded bails then shipped back to the US. The seed continued to several crushing machines and the oil extracted/processed and placed in 55 gallon drums. The crushed seed then went on to cook and compacted to create some sort of livestock feed (nothing wasted). This process was where the pleasant aroma came from.
My grandfather had a modest shack/office with a metal drafting table, slide rules along with fair amount of Starrett tooling and a technical library of vintage manuals. I would visit him every summer and as I got older I would spend the day along side never bored. I remember once he was on the phone and quickly ended the call based on a frequency change he picked up on. His shack was a stand alone building away from the main factory and he still picked up on subtle anomalies, amazing to me then and now. My grandfather could weld, machine, design tools/machines, rewind motors, improve existing equipment and invented many things during his lifetime. He was not formally educated in this field but was very intelligent and knew how to use all his resources. His math was over the top too.

At age 14 during a Thanksgiving break, he learned I was in beginners machine shop in HS and put me to the test. He made a deal with me, he sketched up a little project at the kitchen table on a napkin. It was my first paying job that I can remember. It required multiple diameters OD/ID and one external taper. He told me that if I could turn it to tolerance, he would gift me a Starrett Micrometer. Once we arrived to the plant, he let me choose what lathe to use, they had two very old machines but where impeccably clean. I then scrounged for the stock required. It took me most of the day but I was more concerned with impressing my "Abuleo" as I used his personal wooden toolbox/tools. He was so proud of me, his eyes began to sweat (as mine are as I type). He gave me a Starrett No.224 and a slide rule. I have used the mic over the years and it's a nice instrument. The slide rule is just a memento of my hero. He past away in 1988 my son was one month old so it made it easier for me to cope with my loss.

The handwritten note is in Spanish although my "Abuelito" was fluent in english.
Translation: Accept this gift as a remembrance of your "gramps" Nacho, 6th of November 1979, Juarez,Mexico...and Merry Christmas.
View attachment 248447View attachment 248448
Man it still hurts to thinks about my grandfathers last days. His lungs failed from many years of no PPE and smoking, but that was the norm those days. I credit my "abuelito" for my desire to work with my hands and continue to learn. My mother and father where also responsible with unconditional support paying HS shop fees, signing papers allowing me to enlist in the Navy at seventeen. My mom visits a few times throughout the year and always finds time to hang out with me in the shop. She thinks I'm special like my grandfather, but then again she's my mother;). I'm so far behind my grandfather but I'm giving it 110%. Wow! Part of me is sad reminiscing , but the awesome memories outweigh the sad fact of life...Life is short, embrace it, and never forget those special people that made it all possible. In closing, I want to acknowledge my wife of 30 years who's unconditional love/support for my quest of knowledge has resulted in a considerable investment. She says I work too much, but for me its a purpose I truly love/enjoy.
Thank you for allowing me to share a small timeline of my blessed life.
Turn and Burn!
Peace,
Paco
Click to expand...
My eyes are "sweating" as well, Paco. Thanks for sharing your memories.
 
I guess I started being interested in the machinery field when I was about four years of age, My father was a resourceful soul, and had worked since the end of the first world war, and due to the depression was in various occupations, One of the earliest he told me about was that of a ships fireman, Strange to say furnaces and steam engines are in my blood, My fathers maternal Gr. grandfather was a ships fireman , and his son, dads grandfather was a boilermaker, My mothers father was a winding engineman in a colliery, & later to obtain more wages for his family he also was a boiler attendant, His father was the driver of a big steelworks rolling engine, So I guess engines are imprinted in my make up.

When I was a small kid, helping dad to make do and mend was my best interest, He was employed in a second world war machine shop, He operated tone of the biggest radial drilling machines in the district, & towards the latter days of the war did much of the marking out and some erecting work, But the sad thing was he felt being in a machine shop was too restricting , and he wanted to eascape back to working with a horse in an open air environment which he eventually aspired to.

However his old pal who was a farmer and a mechanical genius with a few designs for machinery as well used to spend a Saturday afternoon repairing machinery which fascinated me, Father was a keen on education and learning generally, and off an afternoon, Mother and I as well would head to the city to visit various museums, One in particular had at that time the most exquisite engineering models which it would be hard to better, I can remember looking at these works of art, and saying to myself "I would clove to be able to make nice things like that in metal" My favourite toy was a wound armature from a little electric motor, I spent many an hour wondering how somebody managed to make it.

One day dad took me down to his workplace and I was in awe of these huge machines and I was fascinated with the flow of white cutting oil on the lathes It was a Saturday afternoon and the backshift was beavering away turning out various things for a totally pointless war which only led to misery for lots of poor souls Another two guys who prompted me was my headmaster, who used to let us see his model galleons , and my mothers brother, who was a miner, but repaired clocks , that made me over the years realise , he could manufacture lovely turned spindles with the most primitive set of turns.
Time rolled on and secondary school (Wake Up Call !) loomed It was not too bad as I was introduced to technical drawing & woodwork, and pretty basic metalwork, Only hand tools , Machine tools ? heavens no, except for a beat up pillar drill forget it! I left school and enrolled in night schhol That was the first time I operated a lathe in anger, It was a 1920 Colchester screwcutting lathe , Not a bad machine, I learned a lot on that old lathe, & as a bit of regressing, my pal found one of the same model for me , a few years back , Takes me back to a pretty innocent fifteen year old, Later on I began my apprenticeship in afoundry and we moved back to the industrial belt , I began to build up a tool kit for fine work, and along came a small 3&1/2" centre height lathe I was 18 years old at this stage, And, father helped me set it up and get it working, That basically is how I began , Recently I came across another lathe off the same size so I have set about rebuilding it Another step down memory lane
One of the things that was golden was my dads old mining colleagues from the pre-war years and him also telling me of how a co-operative effort in building a small drift mine came about It would seem my dad was the boilerman, steam windlass driver/ pony driver , repair man, and tea maker for a few years before the war, These old guys could make much with very little
I still even after forty seven years, miss dad looking over my shoulder in the workshop.
 
It was late in life when I jumped into the unknown world of metal machining. The motivation was the desire to learn something new and out of necessity.

I started high power competition in 1995 and still going at it. When I finally retired in 2011, I ramped up my shooting schedule to where I was burning 2 barrels, till the ripple effect of Sandy Hook made it terribly hard to get custom barrels in time. When the 2 barrels I ordered in 2013 were not finished till the summer of 2014, I decided I need to learn how to crank out my own barrels from blanks.

Bored at the hotel at Camp Perry during the Nationals in 2014, I actively started looking for a Bridgeport and a lathe. While still at the Nationals I found a Jet belt drive 1340 just south of Toledo. Made a deal on it, the seller reneged on the day bedore pick up. Good thing I have not signed on trailer rental.

The day before returning to TX, I found a package deal on CL in College Station, TX. I called the seller and asked him what would it take for me to close the deal. Since I was still in Ohio, I was willing to ask my service buddy to pay him in my absence. I told the seller about the episode I went through in Toledo, he assured me that no heroics are needed, he won't sell them from under me and gave me his assurance that his word is good. We agreed on 5K cash for both BP and a lathe. The BP is S1 2HP variable speed with DRO, BP X axis power drive, and VFD just being used a 3P provider. For accessories; Kurt 6 inch, 6 inch Strong brand Super spacer, 5C collet indexer, small set of BP R8 collet, and a large box of end mills. The lathe is a Taiwanese ACER gear head 1236. It came with Aloris AXA and a dozen Aloris tool holders, Trav-A-Dial, a Strong brand 3J, unused 4J, and a bunch of brazed turning bits.

The day after I got back I went and picked up the machines.

Now that I got them, the journey to the joys and frustration of machining began. Never ran any of these machines before. I enlisted the help of the shooter I know from Memphis, Rick Voyles. Through emails and phone calls he walked me through the basics of running a lathe and mill. Not too long after I had the machines I ran across MKSJ when I decided to upgrade the 1236. Along the way, MKSJ not only helped me with the VFD, but he also helped me sort out a few machining issues. Very thankful to Mark. The forum was very helpful to me. I posted numerous questions, the outpouring of help was tremendous, forever grateful.

When I was ready to do some chambering, my shooting buddies donated their shot out barrels to the cause. A retired benchrest gunsmith from TX, Butch Lambert, guided me through the chambering process, the way benchrest gunsmiths do it. With the shot out barrels and my new found chambering knowledge, I must have done over a dozen training chambering jobs. I chucked up a barrel, indicate it, cut and thread the tenon, chamber, cut it off and start all over again.

2015, the TX Junior program, leveraging Butch's connection with Shilen Barrels, we were able to secure a deal for our juniors to get free barrels from Shilen. Besides the barrels I chambered for me and for my brother's benchrest rifle, the junior barrels started the backlog in my shop.

I have acquired 2 more lathes, one, actually my favorite now, a Jet 1024. It was sourced by Ulma Doctor in his AO. He crated it and sent to TX. This 1024 also has been upgraded with one of MKSJ's VFD creations. I am spoiled by them, can't live without them. The complete system for the SBL 13 is here, it will have to wait till I get done with both knee replacements, left is now healing.

Now, 75 barrels later from when I started the first barrel for me, the kids, my brother, and my friends keep me busy. I was busy, but the reward has been overwhelming. From the barrels from shop, one was used by overall winner in the 2016 President's Hundred, by one of our TX shooters This is a no sighter match shot at 200, 300, and 600 yards, attended by military and civilian shooters totalling over 1500. In the same year at Camp Perry, 4 individual national records were set by shooters with barrels from my shop. The 6 man team National record was broken by the TX adult team, actually smashed by 32 points. Of the 6 shooters, 3 of the barrels came from the shop. The old record stood since the mid 90s. 2017, one of our juniors set a national record for a no sighter match, Civilian Marksmanship Program Excellence in Competition, 498/500. Certainly, the shooters own all the credits, the barrels were merely enablers to their performance.

The machining journey continuous....
 
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My story is no one in my family had anything to do with machining of any sort. Nor did they have anything to do with motorcycles. Will explain. I was adopted at one year old. I had the best mom and dad ever! Both of them worked for the IRS in VA. When they retired, I was young. They were the equivalent of growing up with grandparents, and old school morals and values. Of course as a kid I didn't agree but I'm glad they were the way they were. I only realized that later in life and am truly grateful for that. I have always been fascinated by machined items my whole life. I've also been fascinated by motorcycles as well. Once again, noone in my family had any background in machining, or motorcycles. About four years ago I decided to look for my biological family. It didn't go the way I would have hoped, but we are all dealt cards and have to take them good or bad. Found out my mother had a love for Harley's! I have my whole life too. Also, the father was a machinist. I've never met either as my mother was killed on a bike before I could ever meet her. The father is, from what I'm told, still a machinist, or at least he was in his career. It makes me think that it was in my blood somehow on both bikes and machining. Can't explain it any other way. Either way both hobbies have brought me a lot of enjoyment in my life, although machining hasn't even hit one full year yet. It's been fun and this forum has taught me more than anything else. I have to say thank you to a lot of you that helped me out. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks.
 
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Dhector said:
My story is noone in my family had anything to do with machining of any sort. Nor did they have anything to do with motorcycles. Will explain. I was adopted at one year old. I had the best mom and dad ever! Both of them worked for the IRS in VA. When they retired, I was young. They were the equivalent of growing up with grandparents, and old school morals and values. Of course as a kid I didn't agree but I'm glad they were the way they were. I only realized that later in life and am truly grateful for that. I have always been fascinated by machined items my whole life. I've also been fascinated by motorcycles as well. Once again, noone in my family had any background in machining, or motorcycles. About four years ago I decided to look for my biological family. It didn't go the way I would have hoped, but we are all dealt cards and have to take them good or bad. Found out my mother had a love for Harley's! I have my whole life too. Also, the father was a machinist. I've never met either as my mother was killed on a bike before I could ever meet her. The father is, from what I'm told, still a machinist, or at least he was in his career. It makes me think that it was in my blood somehow on both bikes and machining. Can't explain it any other way. Either way both hobbies have brought me a lot of enjoyment in my life, although machining hasn't even hit one full year yet. It's been fun and this forum has taught me more than anything else. I have to say thank you to a lot of you that helped me out. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks.
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Sounds like you got the best of three worlds: A sound foundation of moral values, the love of motorcycles and machining. Theres a lot to be said about blood lines for sure.
 
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