/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.227583]

What are the pros of being a Machinist?

Possible intern questioning here.

[Anonymous No.227588]

It's a satisfying, universally demanded trade that will change the way you look at the world forever. DO IT! If it weren't for massive layoffs I would be to busy machining to comment on your future. Good luck man, awesome opportunity. Take it.
Captcha:" Life). youpssi "(sound it out! no joke!lol)

[Anonymous No.227670]

>>227588
> universally demanded
> massive layoffs

[anus presley No.227673]

it's the kind of career that one can get really wrapped up in.

[Anonymous No.227679]

>>227583
(this assumes you are in the USA)
pros: you may get to make nifty stuff with the equipment on the down time. if there is down time

cons: you are expected to have a LOT of knowledge that costs money to get, yet the starting wages at many places are shitty. You basically need a bachelor's in engineering PLUS you need to know how to do CAD and CNC programming, but many places only start out at $20K-$25K

------

the good positions are at defense contractors. yes there are lots of other jobs, but its mostly old guys doing them. and there is a reason for that. Go to practicalmachinist.com and lurk in the "shop management" forum, you will see three things said over and over" "I can't find anyone good enough to hire", "I need a bunch of qualifications", and finally "I don't know why these kids who apply think they are worth so much money, when I started out I did it for free until they paid me in rocks and dirt, blah blah blah,,,,,".

compared to ~40 years ago and adjusted for inflation, machinist schooling has gone up 3X in cost, while machinist pay has dropped about 2/3 of what it was back then. It used to be a firmly-middle-class job back then, and it is much less than that now.

I love doing it as a hobby, but would never consider it as a career.

[Anonymous No.227780]

2nd it as a hobby not a career. I dig ditches and one of the guys on the crew came over to dig because the pay was better. Yeeeeaaaah

[Anonymous No.227813]

I'm a Journeyman Machinist in Canada, so I'll help with pro's:

-Wages ($30/hr+ when you have your ticket)
-Make/repair stuff for yourself / friends during downtime
-Gain a lot of knowledge and skill that pans out to pretty much everything else in industry

[Anonymous No.227815]

if they tell you to repair anything with conveyor belts, tag the circut breaker OFF.

[Anonymous No.227821]

>>227679
This. I work a CNC machine in a die-cast factory, basically push buttons and load parts. The company I work for has only a handful of their machinists who actually know how to program the CNC machines and a shit load of button jockeys. The technicians are all old, and have had their training forever, but the company refuses to train any of us button jockeys because of the cost, even though the technicians are all fucking old as shit and nearing retirement. I see all the time on the internet that there are not enough Machinists in the US, yet I have never seen a job where they are willing to train or help get training.

[Anonymous No.227832]

Well I know a machinist that just got offered a engineering job by Aisin-Warner. Of course he didn't just sit on his ass, the dude is really good at what he does.

But its like with any industrial job, there are a lot of shitty places that pay jack shit and there are a many others that pay rather large amounts of money but they often know as much about much of the stuff as the engineers do.

Any kind of machinist, industrial electrician, pipefitter, mechanic, etc. Is good because everywhere I've ever been or person I've talked too. Much of the shops are full of older men, many places are already short handed, and if you are a guy that really works at it HARD you will get rewarded for it with a very comfy job.

I'm an electrician, about to go back to school so I have the paperwork for the pipefitting/mechanic side of things, but if I went for anything else, it'd probably be take more classes on robotics/plc programming, stuff like that or taking machine shop.

[Anonymous No.227853]

There is a shortage of machinists in the US, but companies are not willing to hire and train people without a fuckton of experience and knowledge. It's a shitty situation. The trade used to be highly respected, but has now sunk down to low-class blue collar job.

Shitty, shitty situation.

[None !!b1y795nhfDZ No.227899]

>>227679
>You basically need a bachelor's in engineering PLUS you need to know how to do CAD and CNC programming,

Not really. I have qualifications as CNC programmer, machinist and fully qualified engineer.

As a machinist you don't need knowledge touching what an engineer learns- for CNC you need to be proficient with CAM software, as well as the machine controller and general machining (feeds, speed, tool geometry, chip loads other basic stuff). That pretty much has you set.

A machinists role isn't supposed to include modeling with CAD utilities either. This is a draftsperson, which is a separate specialised trade. But, its a pretty relevant skill, and most trade courses include the basics of it to at least give an appreciation for drawing interpretation.

Depending on where you are in the world, rates can be pretty good. Here in Australia, depending on the special skill set/competence you have you can make $90/hr as a CNC programmer/machinist. It can easily be more profitable than being an engineer- but you have to be good at what you do.

[Anonymous No.227902]

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6613539/CNC_Machining_Handbook[BBS]

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5441710/Nanjing.Swansoft.CNC.Simulator.v6.50.Multilang-BEAN


What do you guys think of these kind of resources? Is this stuff any good to start learning?

[Anonymous No.227957]

I'm an apprentice machinist, been doing it for about a year and a half. Started at a little under 30k+ with good benefits. They are training me how to control a large variety of machines. Things like lathes, millers, boring mills, cnc lathes and millers, water jet, and precision grinders. Job sent me to college classes on work time, too. Shit was so cash.
I'm 21 years old and instead of spending a fuckton of money on college I get paid to learn. Oh, and when I finish my program in liek 2 years I'll be making around 50k+

[Anonymous No.227965]

So much idiocy ITT...

Let's clear something up (and this is mostly addressing >>227679's post). Engineering (real engineering) is NOT related to what machinists or any other technicians do at all. You do NOT need a bachelors in engineering to do it. Usually you'll get a degree/diploma/[other certification] (even if it says "engineering" on it- don't fool yourself it's not ABET/[other professional engineering accreditation] accredited) from a technical college/the company that employs you. It usually takes 2-3 years depending on how extensive your education is and how much time a day you have for it. In almost all cases your company pays for this training or has its own facilities to train you with (the technical college I went to used to train technicians for a specific company's factory for example). I don't recommend getting the credentials (and paying for it personally) before the actual job like you would with a professional degree. No one is hiring in this economy so its just a bad idea. The best deal you can get is if you have family members working in the company that arrange a job/training for you or an internship like the OP and >>227957.
Source: I'm a Chemical Engineering major who also did technicians training during holidays when I was younger.

As for becoming a mechanist as a career choice...you could do a lot worse. Kids on /sci/ will tell you a lot of BS about technicians becoming superfluous in the near future due to mechanization of the industry, but the truth is that these factories are a lot more expensive than traditional ones that require more technicians. Incidentally, this is also the reason why you need a lot more education/experience for most jobs nowadays. Imo there will always be a job market even if it becomes relatively smaller.