The Truth be Told

I am a geologist and gunsmith. I can make you a gun from raw iron including the barrel with rifling. I've had more than one attack of the "high back" variety. There are MANY "experts (has been drip under pressure). I have developed a thicker skin and an uncanny ability to turn and walk away. My memory is intact if I ever run across them again...... I am also able to learn even today at my advanced age.
 
Billh,

God bless you.

The people on here desperately want to learn.
The US is a service economy now. We don't make anything anymore.
I'm not trying to be political, just realistic.
Older Americans have the knowledge.
When the people with knowledge pass, the knowledge is gone. Gone forever.
Unless we save it somehow, like on here, or on videos.
I want to do that. I feel that we need to manufacture things again.

I can't learn anything here in NYC. The manufacturing is basically gone here.
Machine shops are now lofts and studios for people to live in.
The nearest community college with courses is in Brentwood, a 2 hour trip with rush-hour traffic.
I paid $200 to reserve a spot, couldn't make it in time, and lost the money.
 
I am here to help when I can. But I have also learned a few things. Such as various setups for hard to hold parts, different ways to get the same results, etc. No one can ever say they know everything. But they can always share what they do know. This is the one site I visit every day because there is a lot of knowledge here and people willing to share that. Newbies are never given a hard time just because they ask a question. Because of that I am willing to help when I can.
The people here are always willing to help someone in any way they can. I know because some have helped me in various ways that make me thankfull I am a member here.
 
Nels,on the 'net, a fellow posted about the various brand of micrometers , sorry, I didn't book mark. In it he said a country's industrial revolution could be traced by their production of micrometers. I found that very interesting.

All hands on creativity seems to be fading thing. Like when a language is lost, so is all the knowledge.
 
All I can say is that Nels and the admins make this site possible, but it is all the courteous members that make it feel so welcoming. The best isn't necessarily the biggest with most members, but rather the most welcoming and friendly. Atmosphere is everything, and I would think that being the congenial group that we are, it must make it easy for the moderators...they can just sit back and watch us all being nice to each other.

Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.

David
 
This site has been a god send for me. I had a bad head engiery in 2012. Never had any machining experience at all . Friend gave me a 820 Logan lathe and after it sait for a year it all started . I’m hooked old iron disease .
I’m only 58 but have alteady talked to my wife about if and when I pass. I don’t want to make a profit on anything. Just want a good home
Everything will be posted here before any where else.
Thanks ron
 
I to am on several sites, but I hang here constantly . My wife thinks I have a girl friend behind her back , always typing on this tablet. So I've per her see for herself. So I'm ok with her.
This site has given me an outlet to try and help others do what I loved . I started in vocational four years but three in the machine tool & dye technology. In that time I was taught the old time way , file a block square to machining , heat treatment , grinding all phases, metallurgy,drafting & mechanical drawing. Then out in the real world I worked in many different types of shops doing my apprenticeship and night school for more metallurgy and drafting. My best way to learn is by watching , listening , asking questions. The older machinist who I worked with taught tons of tricks to do jobs , measuring , finishes . I ran machines from the turn of the century , overhead line flat belts still used in one shop I worked in. 72 hour weeks for two years I lived on coffee in there. And I also worked in a classified government job shop , made Forman in three months there. My knowledge from past shops and old machinist tricks made there jobs easier and better. We had less turn downs from inspectors and they made a lot more parts for more money.
So I'm just trying to help , life turned to crap for me after I became disabled . But I'm a fighter , and will be till I'm gone.
 
As wellas hanging out in this site I also hang out in another, I get good Karma from both (horses for courses )I guess, This little site is helpfull and friendly I guess that is what life should be all about Over the years I have become more and more saddend with what the death of industry has thrown up, In the good old 1950 till 1987 period, over here in Europe the manufacturing trades have vanished like snow off the top of a wall,
Nowadays generally speaking the youngsters do not seem by and large to be greatly interested in having anything to do with engineereing trades in general, In that respect I do not blame them, They see it as a road which will be somewhat rocky to travail. On one facet which springs to mind, how will the likes of preserved steam railways, ,steamships and industrial sites get skilled manpower in the future?

On one day a week, I tootle off to my model making club, really nice guys, average ages from fifty to late seventies about possibly half of the guys are not time served machine shop workers, They get along in their own way, What saddens me is the fact that only about three of us can sharpen a tool, everyone else use throw away tool tips , When it comes to measuring, no one but two others and me me uses the old type verniers with a proper engraved scale Everyone else uses digital read out tooling .
O.K. so I am *****ing to myself , But I have to remind myself that it is a free world and if the guys are happy achieving the build of their own projects Fair do's, I tend to be an backward type of guy who harks back to how the old guys from my young days (and before them) would carry out manufacturing, I still live in a world of shapers, planers and two belt driven lathes , As this old world keeps turning over (hopefully) for another thirty years such methology & knowledge of basic hand skills will be gone, and our dependency on the likes of China and other pacific rim countries will be a strangle hold and we will become an even more depressing "Has Been "culture Thank God for The Hobby Machinist for its down to earth approach for the learners & beginners.
 
Love this site. Absolutely love it. I have lurked and learned and I am so grateful for the folks on here and their wonderful attitude.

Thank you to all. :)
 
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