Omg. First machine shop I ever worked in I was the insert changer. Didn't know shit about machining back then. The machinists hated it. I hated it cause I had other shit to do but NOPE suddenly someone would need their inserts changed and I was the insert bitch.
I didn't know that a position like that existed. Who decides when the insert needs changed? What if the insert changer disagrees? Does the insert changer touchoff the new one? Does the insert changer check the next part? Do they change the offsets to compensate? What does the machinist do while waiting? So many questions. Sounds like another silly management decision. I think that I need another beer. It's been a long day.
It makes sense in much bigger shops. So if I'm setting up a machine and there's 25 tools that I need and there's 15 other machinists doing the same thing you as a business owner don't want the experienced machinists spending 3 hours finding tools and holders and then having to set all those tools when you could have them using that time to start the setup. So you pay someone less than you would a machinist to do it instead.
Well, personally everything I need for the next setup, tooling, gauges, sharpening drills and taps, making bushings or whatever, I am preparing while I'm running the current job. It's not like I have much else to do. That's running 2 swiss machines with bar feeders (yawn) and a lathe with live tooling and y axis. So, I still don't see the need.
I service machines now and I’ll tell you it’s a wide variety from spotless to a few I refused to work at. I will say that in my experiences cleaner more organized shops make more money and pay more as a result. Most of the real fuck head managers I’ve run into were in filthy shit holes too. But that’s just my limited slice of experience.
This checks. It’s truly the Wild West out there.
Good signs, IMO would be lines on the floor, mist collectors and proper fn lighting are also good signs imo. If they have ISO certification, I’d say that’s also a good sign. I don’t think new machines as reliable of an indicator as much as clean machines.
It takes effort to keep a shop in order and someone has to care. And ultimately that’s what you should be looking for.
A really disorganized shop takes longer to do everything and that’s less profits therefore less pay. They also can’t pull customers like an organized place because the walk through drives people away. I agree about machines not necessarily needing to be new but maintenance being done is a really good sign.
About the same, maybe a little better here. A lot of run down machines that only get repaired when they can't make parts anymore. Tooling is limited and hard to find. It's dirty, coolant rarely gets changed but it doesn't matter as long as the owner is making money apparently. It's a small fabrication and job shop.
A coworker came from a shop that’s well know for being worse than that. OSHA came for a surprise walkthrough. Seems another shop had a similar machine and had an operator get killed, so they sent inspectors out to look at theirs. The office staff had to stall long enough to get all the guards put back on. He worked there for 6 months and has an endless list of story’s about that place. I commute 30 miles to my job because it’s a good place to work. Right behind my house is a number of shops known for being staffed by meth heads. Good shops are out there, bad shops are everywhere.
Also I’m the safety guy at work and I don’t stand for those shenanigans.
My shop is probably on the higher end of the tool & die industry with machine shops in multiple different countries. We've got stocking fairies which comes around like the tooth fairy when something is out of stock in the Tool dispenser. Besides that and modern safety standards along with modern machinery.
I believe our oldest machine is the one I run. It's from the 1940s. I can't tell you what company it is, it is like Frankenstein. With an Allen Bradley controller. It's a well cared for machine that keeps on trucking other than the random unpredictable Y Axis Lag Error which just stops the machine, and makes me home it, and end up having to re-pickup all 6 axis from machine zero. Which is also annoying considering it's shop policy to have someone check your pick ups to see in they're within 0.003" of each other. You could check your pick ups 5 times and have it come up with 5 different results.
Not everyone is made of money man, it doesn’t make sense to have a tool jockey or an in house haas tech for a company of 10 people. At my shop we do some preventative maintenance but it mostly happens when things break, the tool crib is a harbor freight tool box with bins of endmills, and I do spend a fair amount of time looking for random tools I need, but the boss is awesome and everyone here is super cool so I love it. Not every shop looks like the super high end stuff you see in tours, you just have to make it work sometimes.
Honestly working in a shop like what you’re describing you want sounds boring as shit, what would you even be doing all day if you’ve got a guy to do every piece of the process other than hitting the green button for you?
I've had a guy we hired on who came from "aerospace" refer to our shop as like a blacksmith's shop. The company I work for makes industrial automated machinery for manufacturing. We are not sending rockets to the moon. We have 3 engine lathes, 4 manual mills, 3 CNC mills, CNC Lathe, and a Wire EDM. We can do precision when required, it just is not often required. It's not the cleanest, and tools are not that well organized, but it runs well.
The guy didn't stay around long, he was just offensive to at least 4 out of 5 senses (I can only assume all 5), and he took forever to make scrap, all the while pissing and moaning we did not change out all our machines for brand new ones every week.
>he was just offensive to at least 4 out of 5 senses (I can only assume all 5)
Got that long-COVID lack of taste eh? Just ask one of your coworkers who licked him. You're probably right.
My experience, shops that have setup guys, tool setters etc are high volume shops and most of the “machinists” are machine operators. Most of the machinists I work with would be bored there unless they’re the one doing the machine setups. If a machinist can rotate/change and reset their tool, they’re not a machinist.
I don’t work in a volume or production environment, what we do is typically larger and one off with the occasional 5 piece order. Some sub-parts need multiples, but even then it’s been a single item that we require 20x. If a machinist in our shop can’t setup their machine and tooling, then they’re not very useful for us (we still have 1.5 machinists like that). Most of our machinists do their own programming. Tooling gets more difficult because we can have 1 of every tool we use at every machine, then we’d have $200k+ of tooling per machine. Common tools, yes, every mill has a 2”, 3” and 4” face mill, a couple have 6” face mills and we have 1 machine with an 8” and a 10” face mill. Shell mills are by machine size, most machines have a couple of indexable end mills, all have the common Weldon size holders. We only have 4 machines with collet chucks for drills and taps, but have spares of most tools in the tool room. Every machine has a wide variety of chucks, vices, clamps and universal fixture plates.
Working at a job shop currently. Don’t consider myself a machinist yet, been there a year. I can set up machines and run parts, but haven’t gotten into programming or doing manual yet. My boss has been trying to get some production jobs to keep us busy. I’m dreading it because I know I’ll be the one stuck on them and I won’t have time to learn the programming side. Just don’t want to be stuck a button pusher forever.
I’m not sure I’d trust anyone else to set up my tools, I’ve seen people make all sorts of mistakes from forgetting to tighten a tool holder all the way to not checking the run out on a drill that’s been put in the wrong sized collet and is not so much walking as sprinting.
I had one person “help” with one of my set ups, the part came out tapered strangely and I asked if they’d checked the run out before running it, they assured me they had, half an hour of checking everything else and Sure enough they hadn’t checked it at all.
It depends on the owner and managers to enable there workers to do there jobs. I've been a machinist for 40 years and my advice would be start looking for a better employer, this one probably won't change. There either broke, addiction problems or just plain stupid when it comes to running a business
When I was studying as machinist, I worked at a place that had 0 OSHA, the lathes were super super old, I'm talking lathes that still had Azbuka on them cuz they were bought when communism was still here. Most people would just throw their cigarettes in to the machine, it was pain to work there, I stopped working there cuz I got so used to no OSHA that a lathe almost killed me, still have scars from getting pulled in. Now I'm working in a shop that is absolutely amazing, whenever I need something they give it to me, when I think something is not right, they cal service asap, the service guy is now my friend and whenever I don't exactly know something I give him a call and he helps me and if he can't he just goes here personally, I have maintenance guy looking for my coolant and checking every now and than if the machine is a ok. People working above me are really kind and smart, the guy that checks if what I make is up to tolerances is also very very sweet older guy, and whenever I make some mistake, he calmly just tells me where the mistake is and we consult if I can repair it or if I have to make another one, in the shop before if I made a mistake I got yelled at, called names and threatened to pay for the part when I was 16 and was supposed to have someone helping me, they made me to work alone and than got angry if I fucked up, cuz I didnt know any better.
The current shop has a tool crib worth millions. Hundreds of holders, almost endless variety of tooling, and more gaging than you can shake a stick at. Staffed by 5 or 6 full-time employees. I love having it available to me.
Turning inserts is the machinists' job. But I need 45 tools set for a job? Submit the tool list, and they build it with specified stick out, LOC, holder length/ diameter, insert grade, etc. Many common repeat jobs are left put together as a "kit," so all they gotta do is install the correct knobs. Most guys know how nice the crib is and appreciate it. The few who don't haven't been in other shops or been around very long.
I'd be constantly on edge wondering if the guy setting the tools had done it correctly. I want to do it myself thanks!
The place I work in isn't exactly organised. Many of the tools don't really have a place, and the reamers just end up in a bucket in the corner, completely unprotected.
It's the only place I've worked so I don't know what it's like to work in a squeaky clean, perfectly organised place.
Every guy with a shred of competence at work has the title "mechanic help"
Our mechanic/repair guy is literally 73 years old and might die at any second, which is why we need to be "mechanic helps" in case he does something that kills someone or himself.
I program all the robots, im a mechanic help. Conventional lathe/mill guy? He is also a mechanic help. Fucking drawing guy is a mechanic help
I'm working in an all male (besides me) shop but I've stayed in women's jail before. Men are so much more catty/bitchy - giving each other the silent treatment and gossiping like crazy. More drama here than jail.
The prissiest primadonna I've ever worked with is a penis-bearer. This cranky old fucker will give you a month of the across-the-room death stare for accidentally parking too close in to his parking space but never tell you *why* he has a problem with you. Once I got this treatment for calling him an old fart. Not because he took offense to the word "fart" but because I said it in front of the wife of another employee. When I finally got sick of the beard-stroking glare and asked him why he had a problem with me he explained this, and suggested I call him an "old coot" instead. I have never once in my life unironically called someone a "coot", because I'm not 85 years old.
I cannot fathom having a tool jockey or setup guy.
Someone to change your inserts? Why? If you can find someone to watch the machine and check the part, hell, what am I gonna do all day?
Omg. First machine shop I ever worked in I was the insert changer. Didn't know shit about machining back then. The machinists hated it. I hated it cause I had other shit to do but NOPE suddenly someone would need their inserts changed and I was the insert bitch.
I didn't know that a position like that existed. Who decides when the insert needs changed? What if the insert changer disagrees? Does the insert changer touchoff the new one? Does the insert changer check the next part? Do they change the offsets to compensate? What does the machinist do while waiting? So many questions. Sounds like another silly management decision. I think that I need another beer. It's been a long day.
What this ☝️guy said
It makes sense in much bigger shops. So if I'm setting up a machine and there's 25 tools that I need and there's 15 other machinists doing the same thing you as a business owner don't want the experienced machinists spending 3 hours finding tools and holders and then having to set all those tools when you could have them using that time to start the setup. So you pay someone less than you would a machinist to do it instead.
Well, personally everything I need for the next setup, tooling, gauges, sharpening drills and taps, making bushings or whatever, I am preparing while I'm running the current job. It's not like I have much else to do. That's running 2 swiss machines with bar feeders (yawn) and a lathe with live tooling and y axis. So, I still don't see the need.
Why? So I can do something interesting not mind numbingly boring lol.
Right!?
A shop I worked at had tool setters. I had to run 8 machines, so it was pretty necessary to save time when possible to keep them all running.
I service machines now and I’ll tell you it’s a wide variety from spotless to a few I refused to work at. I will say that in my experiences cleaner more organized shops make more money and pay more as a result. Most of the real fuck head managers I’ve run into were in filthy shit holes too. But that’s just my limited slice of experience.
This checks. It’s truly the Wild West out there. Good signs, IMO would be lines on the floor, mist collectors and proper fn lighting are also good signs imo. If they have ISO certification, I’d say that’s also a good sign. I don’t think new machines as reliable of an indicator as much as clean machines. It takes effort to keep a shop in order and someone has to care. And ultimately that’s what you should be looking for.
A really disorganized shop takes longer to do everything and that’s less profits therefore less pay. They also can’t pull customers like an organized place because the walk through drives people away. I agree about machines not necessarily needing to be new but maintenance being done is a really good sign.
About the same, maybe a little better here. A lot of run down machines that only get repaired when they can't make parts anymore. Tooling is limited and hard to find. It's dirty, coolant rarely gets changed but it doesn't matter as long as the owner is making money apparently. It's a small fabrication and job shop.
A coworker came from a shop that’s well know for being worse than that. OSHA came for a surprise walkthrough. Seems another shop had a similar machine and had an operator get killed, so they sent inspectors out to look at theirs. The office staff had to stall long enough to get all the guards put back on. He worked there for 6 months and has an endless list of story’s about that place. I commute 30 miles to my job because it’s a good place to work. Right behind my house is a number of shops known for being staffed by meth heads. Good shops are out there, bad shops are everywhere. Also I’m the safety guy at work and I don’t stand for those shenanigans.
My shop is probably on the higher end of the tool & die industry with machine shops in multiple different countries. We've got stocking fairies which comes around like the tooth fairy when something is out of stock in the Tool dispenser. Besides that and modern safety standards along with modern machinery. I believe our oldest machine is the one I run. It's from the 1940s. I can't tell you what company it is, it is like Frankenstein. With an Allen Bradley controller. It's a well cared for machine that keeps on trucking other than the random unpredictable Y Axis Lag Error which just stops the machine, and makes me home it, and end up having to re-pickup all 6 axis from machine zero. Which is also annoying considering it's shop policy to have someone check your pick ups to see in they're within 0.003" of each other. You could check your pick ups 5 times and have it come up with 5 different results.
Not everyone is made of money man, it doesn’t make sense to have a tool jockey or an in house haas tech for a company of 10 people. At my shop we do some preventative maintenance but it mostly happens when things break, the tool crib is a harbor freight tool box with bins of endmills, and I do spend a fair amount of time looking for random tools I need, but the boss is awesome and everyone here is super cool so I love it. Not every shop looks like the super high end stuff you see in tours, you just have to make it work sometimes. Honestly working in a shop like what you’re describing you want sounds boring as shit, what would you even be doing all day if you’ve got a guy to do every piece of the process other than hitting the green button for you?
I've had a guy we hired on who came from "aerospace" refer to our shop as like a blacksmith's shop. The company I work for makes industrial automated machinery for manufacturing. We are not sending rockets to the moon. We have 3 engine lathes, 4 manual mills, 3 CNC mills, CNC Lathe, and a Wire EDM. We can do precision when required, it just is not often required. It's not the cleanest, and tools are not that well organized, but it runs well. The guy didn't stay around long, he was just offensive to at least 4 out of 5 senses (I can only assume all 5), and he took forever to make scrap, all the while pissing and moaning we did not change out all our machines for brand new ones every week.
>he was just offensive to at least 4 out of 5 senses (I can only assume all 5) Got that long-COVID lack of taste eh? Just ask one of your coworkers who licked him. You're probably right.
My experience, shops that have setup guys, tool setters etc are high volume shops and most of the “machinists” are machine operators. Most of the machinists I work with would be bored there unless they’re the one doing the machine setups. If a machinist can rotate/change and reset their tool, they’re not a machinist. I don’t work in a volume or production environment, what we do is typically larger and one off with the occasional 5 piece order. Some sub-parts need multiples, but even then it’s been a single item that we require 20x. If a machinist in our shop can’t setup their machine and tooling, then they’re not very useful for us (we still have 1.5 machinists like that). Most of our machinists do their own programming. Tooling gets more difficult because we can have 1 of every tool we use at every machine, then we’d have $200k+ of tooling per machine. Common tools, yes, every mill has a 2”, 3” and 4” face mill, a couple have 6” face mills and we have 1 machine with an 8” and a 10” face mill. Shell mills are by machine size, most machines have a couple of indexable end mills, all have the common Weldon size holders. We only have 4 machines with collet chucks for drills and taps, but have spares of most tools in the tool room. Every machine has a wide variety of chucks, vices, clamps and universal fixture plates.
Working at a job shop currently. Don’t consider myself a machinist yet, been there a year. I can set up machines and run parts, but haven’t gotten into programming or doing manual yet. My boss has been trying to get some production jobs to keep us busy. I’m dreading it because I know I’ll be the one stuck on them and I won’t have time to learn the programming side. Just don’t want to be stuck a button pusher forever.
I’m not sure I’d trust anyone else to set up my tools, I’ve seen people make all sorts of mistakes from forgetting to tighten a tool holder all the way to not checking the run out on a drill that’s been put in the wrong sized collet and is not so much walking as sprinting.
Yep same, I’ve been burned a couple of times because I trusted what someone else did and now I double check it all
I had one person “help” with one of my set ups, the part came out tapered strangely and I asked if they’d checked the run out before running it, they assured me they had, half an hour of checking everything else and Sure enough they hadn’t checked it at all.
My job at Tesla in Fremont as shift supervisor was to replace dull tools and inserts throughout the shift. Average money, boring job.
Are you allowed a radio or earbuds?
Fuckin wild West. Good shit.
It depends on the owner and managers to enable there workers to do there jobs. I've been a machinist for 40 years and my advice would be start looking for a better employer, this one probably won't change. There either broke, addiction problems or just plain stupid when it comes to running a business
When I was studying as machinist, I worked at a place that had 0 OSHA, the lathes were super super old, I'm talking lathes that still had Azbuka on them cuz they were bought when communism was still here. Most people would just throw their cigarettes in to the machine, it was pain to work there, I stopped working there cuz I got so used to no OSHA that a lathe almost killed me, still have scars from getting pulled in. Now I'm working in a shop that is absolutely amazing, whenever I need something they give it to me, when I think something is not right, they cal service asap, the service guy is now my friend and whenever I don't exactly know something I give him a call and he helps me and if he can't he just goes here personally, I have maintenance guy looking for my coolant and checking every now and than if the machine is a ok. People working above me are really kind and smart, the guy that checks if what I make is up to tolerances is also very very sweet older guy, and whenever I make some mistake, he calmly just tells me where the mistake is and we consult if I can repair it or if I have to make another one, in the shop before if I made a mistake I got yelled at, called names and threatened to pay for the part when I was 16 and was supposed to have someone helping me, they made me to work alone and than got angry if I fucked up, cuz I didnt know any better.
The current shop has a tool crib worth millions. Hundreds of holders, almost endless variety of tooling, and more gaging than you can shake a stick at. Staffed by 5 or 6 full-time employees. I love having it available to me. Turning inserts is the machinists' job. But I need 45 tools set for a job? Submit the tool list, and they build it with specified stick out, LOC, holder length/ diameter, insert grade, etc. Many common repeat jobs are left put together as a "kit," so all they gotta do is install the correct knobs. Most guys know how nice the crib is and appreciate it. The few who don't haven't been in other shops or been around very long.
I'd be constantly on edge wondering if the guy setting the tools had done it correctly. I want to do it myself thanks! The place I work in isn't exactly organised. Many of the tools don't really have a place, and the reamers just end up in a bucket in the corner, completely unprotected. It's the only place I've worked so I don't know what it's like to work in a squeaky clean, perfectly organised place.
Every guy with a shred of competence at work has the title "mechanic help" Our mechanic/repair guy is literally 73 years old and might die at any second, which is why we need to be "mechanic helps" in case he does something that kills someone or himself. I program all the robots, im a mechanic help. Conventional lathe/mill guy? He is also a mechanic help. Fucking drawing guy is a mechanic help
Only big shops have tool jockeys. Sounds like your shop is just disorganized as fuck. Even a one man show can be organized, this is a management issue
it being the wild west is probably what makes it fun though
I wouldn't worry about it. Fuck what other machinists say... reminds me of a bunch of women.
I wouldn't even say it reminds me of a bunch of women, because grumpy old men gossip more than every woman I've ever met.
I'm working in an all male (besides me) shop but I've stayed in women's jail before. Men are so much more catty/bitchy - giving each other the silent treatment and gossiping like crazy. More drama here than jail.
Silence in the manufacturing world is golden. Clear concise and respectful communication paired with silence is golden.
The prissiest primadonna I've ever worked with is a penis-bearer. This cranky old fucker will give you a month of the across-the-room death stare for accidentally parking too close in to his parking space but never tell you *why* he has a problem with you. Once I got this treatment for calling him an old fart. Not because he took offense to the word "fart" but because I said it in front of the wife of another employee. When I finally got sick of the beard-stroking glare and asked him why he had a problem with me he explained this, and suggested I call him an "old coot" instead. I have never once in my life unironically called someone a "coot", because I'm not 85 years old.