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.