Progress...where are the toolmakers?

[John Ranalletta]

At my first post-college job with a lumber company in WI, I saw $5/hr filers welding shut cracks in 10" band saws using only a gas torch and a ball peen hammer.  The cracks were invisible with no metal discoloration after repair.  In the early 70s, I applied for a job with Waukesha Foundry.  On a tour, I saw highly skilled craftsman create wooden masters for making sand molds.  The masters were absolute artwork I'd be proud to display.  In the late 70s, I worked at the Fram oil filter plant in Greenville, OH.  We had a 2-shift toolroom with a couple dozen toolmakers building and repairing progressive stampings dies.  A friend was an apprentice in Germany as a teen.  He spent the first few weeks with a hand file shaping a piece of scrap steel into a perfect rectangle.

 

Progress is inevitable, but few kids are being taught the art these people displayed.  The folks who made this machine are today's artists but they are few in number.  I follow a few manual machinists on YT, but even they are transitioning.  So it goes.

 

Today?  Toolrooms can operate in a dark facility. 

 

 

[Rougarou]

Quote

Progress...where are the toolmakers?

 

The same place the architects of the dark ages are,.......not here.

 

 

 

 

We will never have buildings built like this again.

 

 

[MT Wallet]

But the machines eventually fail. Then comes the need for "Machine Repair"  1st father in law was a tool maker and most of his work was getting and keeping molds etc. in spec. 2nd FIL was a machine repairman. He kept the production line running-always something to fix. We need more skilled trade education. When I was growing up in the late 50s and 60s the Detroit papers were full of want ads for milwrights, pipefitters etc. for the big 3 when they were a big deal.

 

[DakarTimm]

I've been spinning a wrench as an industrial maintenance mechanic for 37 years . A lot has changed over the years .I've also worked in an aluminum foundry to supplement my income .

The pattern makers who make the forms for the castings are part craftsman part magicians . There are very few young people entering our field .Even those that do..don't stick around very long. 

Too boring is the reason most give as they look for something more fun...

 

[John Ranalletta]

Robert Persig, "The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance":

 

`Sometime look at a novice workman or a bad workman and compare his expression with that of a craftsman whose work you know is excellent and you'll see the difference. The craftsman isn't ever following a single line of instruction. He's making decisions as he goes along. For that reason he'll be absorbed and attentive to what he's doing even though he doesn't deliberately contrive this. His motions and the machine are in a kind of harmony. He isn't following any set of written instructions because the nature of the material at hand determines his thoughts and motions, which simultaneously change the nature of the material at hand. The material and his thoughts are changing together in a progression of changes until his mind's at rest at the same time the material's right.'' `

 

`Sounds like art,'' the instructor says. ``Well, it is art,'' I say. `

[John Ranalletta]

1 hour ago, Rougarou said:

 

The same place the architects of the dark ages are,.......not here.

 

 

 

 

We will never have buildings built like this again.

 

 

This is great!  Today's structures are built to just barely out live the mortgage.