Sorry, snipped out any reference to jon banquer, whose post I was
replying to.

chem wrote:
"How long have you been enrolled in this machining class ?"

The course started the first week of September, so a little better than
a month and a half.

"Hope your trying to do this as much as possible. The more
hands on you can get with the schools machines, the easier it's
going to be on you when your no longer in school."

Yeah, I'm trying to work ahead. One of the guys in my class offered to
help me out with any of the things I can't figure out just from the
book, but the book seems to be doing a pretty good job of explaining so
far.

"Are you working with both knee mills and lathes right now"

Just working on the mills right now. Sometime after the middle of
November we're switching and I'll be going to the lathes. We'll be
doing CNC after Christmas and our instructors want us to have the basics
of the mills and the lathes before that. I'll be going back to the mill
later on to finish up the rest of the projects. We've got a couple of
projects to do on the horizontal mills too.

"I see aerospace machining as a dead end job in Phoenix, Arizona."

Aerospace is a big thing here. I live in what used to be an old
military base, and quite a few of the businesses out here are aerospace
related. The school I go to has some aerospace programs and it's out
here as well. Labour is cheaper here than in bigger places and the
government had a part in attracting those businesses here as well. We've
got Honeywell here too. Helipro and Atlantic Turbines, owned by Vector
Aerospace. MDS Prad opened up here a while ago - I don't know much
about them, but they do coatings for turbine engines or something.
Wiebel Aerospace used to be out here, but they moved into town a couple
of years ago. A couple of the companies out here seem to be slowing
down, but yesterday we had a tour of the shop by another company that's
considering opening up here. So... Not sure which way things are headed.

"I would like to broaden my skill base and build high performance
engines and various components that are used on them. Perhaps 5 axis
cylinder head work. I can see going into business for myself in the
future doing high performance engine related work. I would never want to
open my own machining job shop."

I think a couple of the guys in my class are interested in getting into
custom cars and bikes eventually. I'm not even really sure that I'm
planning on doing for sure. There's so many things that I never
realized were related to machining. I couldn't handle the stress of
opening a machine shop, although 20 years from now I'd love to have a
little hobby shop of my own.

"It's a very broad and diverse field where no one knows it all."

I've met some who think they do... ;D

"Are you working in a job shop right now ? Have you in the past ?"

Not now, I stopped working before school started. I worked deburring in
a machine shop that did aerospace work. That's what got me interested
in becoming a machinist. Before I started there I didn't even know what
a machine shop was.

chem



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