LEDobsession
Enlightened
Today, (in about 2 hours) I start back at the awesome machine shop I worked for about 6 months ago for a little over a year. Now I should be able to get my Solaris Series lights goin in a little while. Wish me luck!
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Powdersummit
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There's no job quite like working in a machine shop. Every shop is different and if you can find the right fit, it can be quite rewarding. I've been at the same machine shop for almost 5 years, probably going to be many more.
Carl
Carl
LEDobsession
Enlightened
The shop I'm at is a really really nice shop. I love the place, however, I hate what I do there. I have mostly been placed in the manual machines, don't get me wrong, they can be fun, great for learning, and are usually best for "odds and ends" type jobs, but our manual mills are the old-school "Bandit" Bridgeports. I hate those things with a passion. On top of that, out of the 8(+) manual mills we have, 5 of those are Bandits. Only two of those 8 have less than .01" backlash in both x and y. One of them is a Mitutoyo controller and the other is completely manual. Im usually forced to use the bandits because the 2 good mills are taken with other setups. The manual lathes are ok; none have a DRO that works but everything else works and they hold tight tolerances. The jobs I get on them usually suck though. Overall, I like machining, just not where I work and doing it for so long has made me bitter to the point where I will never make my career in machining. I guess its fun for me until I have to do it for a living. Ill hold on to it for a hobby I guess. :shrug:
precisionworks
Flashaholic
Nothing much is glamorous about being a machinist, manual or CNC is all the same. The majority of shops are hot in the summer, cold in the winter, poorly ventilated, noisy, dirty, and not well lighted. Chip burns on the neck and wrists come with the job.
The shop where I worked had constant air-arc gouging (for the noise) plus high amp MIG welding - dual shield wire so there was always lots of smoke. I've visited high end medical and aero shops where the machines were placed in a Class 1000 clean room - but none are located within 200 miles of where I live.
It does, however, beat most jobs - especially if you have a good boss. Mine would assign me a project & leave me alone until it was finished. A perfect boss, IMO
The shop where I worked had constant air-arc gouging (for the noise) plus high amp MIG welding - dual shield wire so there was always lots of smoke. I've visited high end medical and aero shops where the machines were placed in a Class 1000 clean room - but none are located within 200 miles of where I live.
It does, however, beat most jobs - especially if you have a good boss. Mine would assign me a project & leave me alone until it was finished. A perfect boss, IMO
LEDobsession
Enlightened
Nothing much is glamorous about being a machinist, manual or CNC is all the same. The majority of shops are hot in the summer, cold in the winter, poorly ventilated, noisy, dirty, and not well lighted. Chip burns on the neck and wrists come with the job.
The shop where I worked had constant air-arc gouging (for the noise) plus high amp MIG welding - dual shield wire so there was always lots of smoke. I've visited high end medical and aero shops where the machines were placed in a Class 1000 clean room - but none are located within 200 miles of where I live.
It does, however, beat most jobs - especially if you have a good boss. Mine would assign me a project & leave me alone until it was finished. A perfect boss, IMO
The shop Im at is really well built. We have 5 buildings with over 100,000 square feet of building space. All of our welding is done across the street in another building so we don't have to put up with that noise and smoke (although CNCs are noisier and some of the other machines (water jet) can produce some smoke). The building (machine shop not weld shop) is very well heated and air conditioned. We have lots of overhead garage doors all around the building for access to large trucks, new machines, forklifts, and huge aerospace parts. The lighting is superb and the ventilation is surprisingly good. Its not a class 1000 clean room but as clean as we keep it, its never dirty. As the economy has taken a dive, my boss (the owner) has not laid anyone off. He will find something for everyone to do. You may be cleaning or organizing, but you still have a job. Our machines are mostly Matsuura Mills and Mori Seiki Lathes with Toshibas as well as others in the mix. See a list of our machines here (some of them have links to the pics). We just got a new Matsuura H-Plus 630 4 axis Horizontal Mill recently too. My favorite machine is the Matsuura MAM72-63V PC17 5 Axis. That thing is insane. Overall, the shop is really nice and everyone in the valley I've talked to that left there, wanted to go back because it was the best shop they worked at. I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Haha.
Powdersummit
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LEDobsession, Sounds like you've got a place a lot like mine. We did have some layoffs but one was lazy and the other was a stoner. Did get some pretty good pay cuts, but we've still got jobs (most of us anyway). CNC is the only way to go. The machine that I'm on is our newest a NZ2000T3Y3. 2 spindles and 3 turrets with a y axis on each turret. You can have up to 16 tools per turret and live tooling options for X and Z. It runs 3 programs at the same time for each of the turrets. When running bar feed all you do is take parts out of the wash tray and measure them every now and then. Not a bad machine for 600K+. If I remember I'll take some pictures tonight.
Carl
Carl
LEDobsession
Enlightened
We have the ZT2500, which is quite similar. It only has 2 turrets but its still an amazing machine. The first time I ran it, I was scared to death of the part off. That other chuck came flying up to it and parted off at 2500 rpm! Holy cow, thats insane!
That MAM72-63V P17 is unworldly though. Youtube it and theres a few videos of it running solid blocks of 6061 into Big Block Chevys and W16 engine blocks! I believe that machine cost upwards of a million dollars (US) give or take, but Im not quite sure. The 17 pallet changer is like a room on the side of it, and you can walk around inside. That thing will run all weekend with no one there to watch it. If it breaks a tool, it'll bring in a new one, touch it off, laser probe the part, check for damage, and continue on with where it left off. All I can say is that technology doesn't make sense anymore. :thinking:
Powdersummit
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Wow it sounds like your shop is set up. Watching the Vids of those 5 axis mills makes my mori NZ seem like special ed. Heck we still do the majority of our programming by hand. We use CAPS on the NZ but I have to hack the program to make it work the way we want to. We don't do live pickups though. Our guys have a hard enough time with the spindles stopped.
Carl
Carl
