"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...

On 4/25/2019 1:42 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
...What about a machinist... No. Just ask any old manual
machinist.
I'm just a hack, button pushing, shade tree, wannabe by the very
fact that I never serviced apprenticeship for 3 lifetimes in a
steam
powered line shop. LOL.


Hmmm, at age 18 I did operate machine tools in a factory with
overhead
line shafts and leather belts. Can I call myself a machinist?




Only if it was steam (water wheel is ok) powered and the old guys in
the shop always sneered down their noses at you and said you weren't
a real machinist if you didn't serve an apprenticeship beating metal
over an anvil first.


A 200 HP electric motor ran the line shafts. Does it count that some
of the electricity was low head hydro?

I didn't have a proper anvil until I was a teen; it was on a shelf in
a friend's garage and had my name plainly stamped on the side,
WILKIN(son), the last 3 missing over a depression. They were a family
of lawyers who had no use for such tools.

Before that I had to pound metal on rocks and stumps and chunks of
discarded scrap iron my grandfather and uncle had brought home from
that factory. Stumps work surprisingly well and leave a smooth finish.
Rocks, not so good.