Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:
"Ken Cutt" wrote in message
...

Yep! I agree fully. I'm not fond of being screwed and often do things

for

myself instead of reaching for my wallet. It's worse than just the

money in

some instances, too. Poor workmanship and unreliable people that don't
follow through. I know I can trust myself, although I may be slower

than

tar on a cold day when doing things I've never done before. Still, I

get

it done.

Cutting a spur gear is no big deal--indexing is probably the most

difficult

part. The last one I made I was fortunate in that I could do it with

an

indexing head. That's not always the case.

Harold



One other not insignificant bonus is what a person learns by tackling
anything new . The knowledge has to have a value . That and the feeling
that you beat the system , every small bit helps ;-)
Ken Cutt


I couldn't have said it better. Tackling the difficult is something I
always encourage. Think about running a lathe. Some folks are intimidated
by hand grinding toolbits, so much so that they turn to insert carbide
tooling in order to avoid the learning curve. Truly a sad thing, for
they're cheating themselves from the one skill that's essential to
machining, the ability to generate cutting tools, and to know when they
aren't proper, and why. I can't think of one thing that will set a person
free more than that ability, when manual machining is involved.

I rarely allow myself to be in a position where I'm at the mercy of others.
In order to live that life style, you must have incredible will power and
confidence. I have both, and they've served me well. Too bad I didn't
have the foresight to get an education, so they could have served me even
better. sigh!~

Ah well, life has been good, and I can't complain.

Harold


Well there is one huge compensating factor the world has given to those
not too timid to ask . The Internet and the forums , such as this one .
As long as one is willing to ask for help the world is full of people of
all skills more than willing to pass on what they can . Nothing is ever
asked in return . Wow imagine that . Think about it , in a world that at
times seems driven by " Whats in it for ME !!! " . Here is so much
precious experience given , without strings . Kinda makes a person think
that way way out there you can see the faint glimmer of light at what
the world may become . I could not list all the people here that have
helped me learn . I sure have been a big winner overall but the sweetest
part is it ain't over yet .
Ken Cutt

It does happen occasionally. My father was an engineer at Lockheed but
didn't have a college degree. I have a friend that became an engineer at an
elevator company five or ten years ago with no college education. He started
at the bottom and worked his way up. He's now a trouble shooter that gets
the jobs no one can solve. I don't think a college trained engineer could do
what he does because they wouldn't have the hands on experience from
assembly to repair that he does. He's well paid and he really enjoys solving
the hard problems. All that you could ask for in a job.
Karl

"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"George" wrote in message
...
Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:
snip Too bad I didn't
have the foresight to get an education, so they could have served me
even
better. sigh!~

Ah well, life has been good, and I can't complain.

Harold


Harold,

Though others got the assembly line style of education, I rather think
you got just as good if not better and more practical, though seldom
recognized as such, an education. You just assembled yours in smaller
bites and spread it out over many more years. Never denigrate what has
shown itself to be of value. Got mine the same way.

George Vigneron

George,

True, I suppose. Problem is it's hard to sell the school of hard knocks
to
a prospective employer, very unlike conditions when I was a young lad. I
started my machining career in a missile facility, in which several of the
engineers had no degree, but could do the work. I'm of the opinion that
such people would find it impossible to find employment in that capacity
in
today's environment.

The place I feel I'm woefully lacking is in general education. I'm not
well
rounded, and I feel it shows. I was a bit of a mule as a kid, paying
attention only to things that interested me. As a result, I've never
learned the art of learning about things that may have an affect on my
life,
but I find boring. Politics, for one. Had I been "forced" to learn to
learn, maybe I'd be better rounded. The forcing didn't work in my
early
school years--at which time I did nothing. I have no recollection of
hauling books home. I was tested when I was in the 5th grade because the
teacher felt I wasn't able to learn. The results were shocking----for I
was found to be performing at a 9th grade level. I was lucky. I could
pretty much sleep through my classes and still get passing grades (note I
didn't say good grades). Only when I got into high school and could
choose
things that held my interest did I do good, and then only in the classes
I
chose. Truth be known, in my case, it's a personal problem that resulted
in my poor education. I fault only myself, not the system.

But then, as I said, life is good! :-)

Harold

Waterjet works quite well for making gears to reasonable precision (say
+/- 0.002 or 0.003" or so.) Better precision is possible with the
higher-end machines with careful setup and such.

See: http://www.waterjets.org/waterjet_pictures_5.html for a few
examples.

Also, scroll down about a 3rd of the way down the following page for
lots of examples of waterjet gears in various materials, and the
software used to program them, and some other info and such:

http://www.omax.com/support/pics_from_cd/Pictures.html

The kind of accuracy you can get will be HIGHLY dependant on the brand
of equipment used.

A machine for doing the above work can be had for $80,000 (a 24 x 24"
machine)

Carl.

daniel peterman wrote:
Seems like waterjet would be ideal for short runs of gears since they
are basically flat. Here's a crazy idea... How about cutting the change
gears from phenolic using a laser. Would they be tough enough?
On modern CNC equipment would they just make a single gear when one is
ordered or run a batch of say, 6, and save the rest for future orders?
Not much material in a gear so they wouldn't take up much space to store
in case another order came in next week. I would never make just one of
anything if making more only used another 3 bucks worth of material and
10 bucks labor.

Ken Cutt wrote:
Well there is one huge compensating factor the world has given to those
not too timid to ask . The Internet and the forums , such as this one .
As long as one is willing to ask for help the world is full of people of
all skills more than willing to pass on what they can . Nothing is ever
asked in return . Wow imagine that . Think about it , in a world that at
times seems driven by " Whats in it for ME !!! " . Here is so much
precious experience given , without strings . Kinda makes a person think
that way way out there you can see the faint glimmer of light at what
the world may become . I could not list all the people here that have
helped me learn . I sure have been a big winner overall but the sweetest
part is it ain't over yet .

One of Guy Lautard's Bedside Readers has a short paragraph about one of
his guys that would outright fire any of his employees that wouldn't
answer an apprentice's questions on how to do something.

RCM has always seemed to be populated with people of that caliber, at
least in the few years I've lurked.

Pete (in St. Paul, MN)

Pete -

I don't go for the Guy Lautard paragraph - I don't think it was him...

Sounds like you would fire the Senior man who forgot how that student tool
worked 40 years ago...

No not me. I bet you didn't know what day it was from time to time - seems normal.
I really don't trust perfect people - they can't adjust and operate in real time.
Buy the book guys can only do the book. How many jobs are in the book !

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Pete Bergstrom wrote:
Ken Cutt wrote:

Well there is one huge compensating factor the world has given to
those not too timid to ask . The Internet and the forums , such as
this one . As long as one is willing to ask for help the world is full
of people of all skills more than willing to pass on what they can .
Nothing is ever asked in return . Wow imagine that . Think about it ,
in a world that at times seems driven by " Whats in it for ME !!! " .
Here is so much precious experience given , without strings . Kinda
makes a person think that way way out there you can see the faint
glimmer of light at what the world may become . I could not list all
the people here that have helped me learn . I sure have been a big
winner overall but the sweetest part is it ain't over yet .


One of Guy Lautard's Bedside Readers has a short paragraph about one of
his guys that would outright fire any of his employees that wouldn't
answer an apprentice's questions on how to do something.

RCM has always seemed to be populated with people of that caliber, at
least in the few years I've lurked.

Pete (in St. Paul, MN)

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On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:27:46 -0500, "Martin H. Eastburn"
wrote:

Pete -

I don't go for the Guy Lautard paragraph - I don't think it was him...

Sounds like you would fire the Senior man who forgot how that student tool
worked 40 years ago...


snip
Sorry
Machinist's Third Bedside Reader, page 139, part of "That Last Half
Thou"
Quote
This brings to mind something Bob Haralson once told me. "When I find
a man in a shop I'm runnin' who won't show an apprentice boy anything
he wants to know, I fire him".
Knowing Bob as I do, I probably needn't have asked him if he ment that
he soon found some pretext for firing the guy.
"no. I _fire_ him! " said Bob emphatically. Ive chuckled over that
many a time since.
Close Quote

Lots of good stuff in the Bedside Readers.
Bob
rgentry_at_oz_dot_net
_AT_ = @, _dot_ = . to eMail

"Bob Gentry" rgentry_AT_oz_dot_net@ wrote in message
...
snip--
Machinist's Third Bedside Reader, page 139, part of "That Last Half
Thou"
Quote
This brings to mind something Bob Haralson once told me. "When I find
a man in a shop I'm runnin' who won't show an apprentice boy anything
he wants to know, I fire him".
Knowing Bob as I do, I probably needn't have asked him if he ment that
he soon found some pretext for firing the guy.
"no. I _fire_ him! " said Bob emphatically. Ive chuckled over that
many a time since.
Close Quote

That brings to mind one of the supervisors at Sperry Utah. The company was
founded in '56 expressly to build the Sergeant missile. Location was chosen
where there was a 'right to work' in an effort to get away from the horrible
union problems of the '50's, particularly on the right hand side of the US.

The machine shop was initially staffed almost entirely with locals, some of
whom were, at best, questionable as machinists. Once so staffed, company
policy was to load the shop with trainees as they went from the R&D stage
into production, so they could groom them to work to gov't requirements.
Thus, a huge number of young people were quickly hired after a 6 month crash
course at the local community college.

Imagine the need for supervision of all these young people.

The older guys that were hired in were promoted to leadman, or supervisor.
One of them, who was promoted to supervisor, and shall remain nameless, was
overseeing the drill press section, and for a brief time, the grinding
department, where I worked.

One fine day I had to engage him in conversation regards a job I was
running. I found him in the drill press section, lapping a hole with a
Deltronic pin (I told you some of them were questionable as machinists). I
don't recall how the conversation went, but along the way he told me "do you
think I'm going to teach these guys everything I know? If they knew as much
as I did, they'd have my job".

Moron!

Truth be known, for the most part, the trainees already knew as much as he
did. The lucky ones are the ones that forgot it and learned proper
procedures.

Very unlike this fool, my favorite supervisor would go far out of his way to
teach and help the young guys. He was wise enough to know that the better we
were, the better he looked.

It never ceased to amaze me how people with no skills became leaders in that
facility, although, for the most part, leaders were well qualified. Some
individuals just slipped through he cracks. The moron was one of them.

Harold

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:27:46 -0500, "Martin H. Eastburn"
wrote:

One of Guy Lautard's Bedside Readers has a short paragraph about
one of his guys that would outright fire any of his employees
that wouldn't answer an apprentice's questions on how to do
something.

Pete -

I don't go for the Guy Lautard paragraph - I don't think it was him...

Sounds like you would fire the Senior man who forgot how that student tool
worked 40 years ago...


I read it as meaning fire the senior person who *wouldn't* help the new
guy (as opposed to a "couldn't remember" situation).

Pete

That means the man that won't answer questions or helps train is and should be in trouble.
Not a team player and doesn't work for the shop.

Martin
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder



Bob Gentry wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:27:46 -0500, "Martin H. Eastburn"
wrote:


Pete -

I don't go for the Guy Lautard paragraph - I don't think it was him...

Sounds like you would fire the Senior man who forgot how that student tool
worked 40 years ago...



snip
Sorry
Machinist's Third Bedside Reader, page 139, part of "That Last Half
Thou"
Quote
This brings to mind something Bob Haralson once told me. "When I find
a man in a shop I'm runnin' who won't show an apprentice boy anything
he wants to know, I fire him".
Knowing Bob as I do, I probably needn't have asked him if he ment that
he soon found some pretext for firing the guy.
"no. I _fire_ him! " said Bob emphatically. Ive chuckled over that
many a time since.
Close Quote

Lots of good stuff in the Bedside Readers.
Bob
rgentry_at_oz_dot_net
_AT_ = @, _dot_ = . to eMail

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:
"Bob Gentry" rgentry_AT_oz_dot_net@ wrote in message
...
snip--

Machinist's Third Bedside Reader, page 139, part of "That Last Half
Thou"
Quote
This brings to mind something Bob Haralson once told me. "When I find
a man in a shop I'm runnin' who won't show an apprentice boy anything
he wants to know, I fire him".
Knowing Bob as I do, I probably needn't have asked him if he ment that
he soon found some pretext for firing the guy.
"no. I _fire_ him! " said Bob emphatically. Ive chuckled over that
many a time since.
Close Quote


That brings to mind one of the supervisors at Sperry Utah. The company was
founded in '56 expressly to build the Sergeant missile. Location was chosen
where there was a 'right to work' in an effort to get away from the horrible
union problems of the '50's, particularly on the right hand side of the US.

The machine shop was initially staffed almost entirely with locals, some of
whom were, at best, questionable as machinists. Once so staffed, company
policy was to load the shop with trainees as they went from the R&D stage
into production, so they could groom them to work to gov't requirements.
Thus, a huge number of young people were quickly hired after a 6 month crash
course at the local community college.

Imagine the need for supervision of all these young people.

The older guys that were hired in were promoted to leadman, or supervisor.
One of them, who was promoted to supervisor, and shall remain nameless, was
overseeing the drill press section, and for a brief time, the grinding
department, where I worked.

One fine day I had to engage him in conversation regards a job I was
running. I found him in the drill press section, lapping a hole with a
Deltronic pin (I told you some of them were questionable as machinists). I
don't recall how the conversation went, but along the way he told me "do you
think I'm going to teach these guys everything I know? If they knew as much
as I did, they'd have my job".

Moron!

Truth be known, for the most part, the trainees already knew as much as he
did. The lucky ones are the ones that forgot it and learned proper
procedures.

Very unlike this fool, my favorite supervisor would go far out of his way to
teach and help the young guys. He was wise enough to know that the better we
were, the better he looked.

It never ceased to amaze me how people with no skills became leaders in that
facility, although, for the most part, leaders were well qualified. Some
individuals just slipped through he cracks. The moron was one of them.

Harold


Some of my darkest regrets are people I fired while learning how to be a
supervisor . All with just cause but still looking back now with
experience I know could have been handled without taking some ones job
away . So often while young I let ego and pride make calls that I would
not down the road . Experience later helped me get right . I made a
point of helping people working for me get it right as they were
promoted . Maybe some people are born with the knowledge a task takes ,
I sure was not one of them . The biggest thing that burns all these
years later was the people that paid a price while I learned how to be a
boss .
Ken Cutt

"Ken Cutt" wrote in message
...
Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:
"Bob Gentry" rgentry_AT_oz_dot_net@ wrote in message
...
snip--

Machinist's Third Bedside Reader, page 139, part of "That Last Half
Thou"
Quote
This brings to mind something Bob Haralson once told me. "When I find
a man in a shop I'm runnin' who won't show an apprentice boy anything
he wants to know, I fire him".
Knowing Bob as I do, I probably needn't have asked him if he ment that
he soon found some pretext for firing the guy.
"no. I _fire_ him! " said Bob emphatically. Ive chuckled over that
many a time since.
Close Quote


That brings to mind one of the supervisors at Sperry Utah. The company
was
founded in '56 expressly to build the Sergeant missile. Location was
chosen
where there was a 'right to work' in an effort to get away from the
horrible
union problems of the '50's, particularly on the right hand side of the
US.

The machine shop was initially staffed almost entirely with locals, some
of
whom were, at best, questionable as machinists. Once so staffed,
company
policy was to load the shop with trainees as they went from the R&D
stage
into production, so they could groom them to work to gov't requirements.
Thus, a huge number of young people were quickly hired after a 6 month
crash
course at the local community college.

Imagine the need for supervision of all these young people.

The older guys that were hired in were promoted to leadman, or
supervisor.
One of them, who was promoted to supervisor, and shall remain nameless,
was
overseeing the drill press section, and for a brief time, the grinding
department, where I worked.

One fine day I had to engage him in conversation regards a job I was
running. I found him in the drill press section, lapping a hole with a
Deltronic pin (I told you some of them were questionable as machinists).
I
don't recall how the conversation went, but along the way he told me "do
you
think I'm going to teach these guys everything I know? If they knew as
much
as I did, they'd have my job".

Moron!

Truth be known, for the most part, the trainees already knew as much as
he
did. The lucky ones are the ones that forgot it and learned proper
procedures.

Very unlike this fool, my favorite supervisor would go far out of his
way to
teach and help the young guys. He was wise enough to know that the
better we
were, the better he looked.

It never ceased to amaze me how people with no skills became leaders in
that
facility, although, for the most part, leaders were well qualified.
Some
individuals just slipped through he cracks. The moron was one of them.

Harold


Some of my darkest regrets are people I fired while learning how to be a
supervisor . All with just cause but still looking back now with
experience I know could have been handled without taking some ones job
away . So often while young I let ego and pride make calls that I would
not down the road . Experience later helped me get right . I made a
point of helping people working for me get it right as they were
promoted . Maybe some people are born with the knowledge a task takes ,
I sure was not one of them . The biggest thing that burns all these
years later was the people that paid a price while I learned how to be a
boss .
Ken Cutt

Interesting comments, Ken.

The gentleman mentioned above, the one to whom I referred as my favorite
supervisor (Jay), seemed to just know what to do and say at every turn. He
went to bat for me (his decision, not mine) when the manufacturing
superintendent wanted to fire me after my probationary period was up. I had
been behaving like I was still in high school and screwing up routinely.
Not a pretty sight in retrospect.

Later, when I finally got my feet on the ground and was a productive
machinist, I recall seeing the manufacturing superintendent standing off in
the distance, watching me as I trepanned inch thick aluminum plates, one
after the other, in rapid succession. Only later did I learn that Jay had
called him to come out to the shop and see the fruits of his labor.

Jay was a prince amongst men. He showed no favoritism, was even handed and
totally fair in his dealings with the guys in the shop. He was easily the
best supervisor they had, and was liked by all, yet he was pretty much all
business as far as his job was concerned. Strangely, he was promoted
from the ranks, just as the others were. Where he got his incredible skills
at handling people I don't know. Prior to his promotion to lead man, he
was a jig borer operator. I guess some people have a gift!

Harold

Interesting comments, Ken.

The gentleman mentioned above, the one to whom I referred as my favorite
supervisor (Jay), seemed to just know what to do and say at every turn. He
went to bat for me (his decision, not mine) when the manufacturing
superintendent wanted to fire me after my probationary period was up. I had
been behaving like I was still in high school and screwing up routinely.
Not a pretty sight in retrospect.

Later, when I finally got my feet on the ground and was a productive
machinist, I recall seeing the manufacturing superintendent standing off in
the distance, watching me as I trepanned inch thick aluminum plates, one
after the other, in rapid succession. Only later did I learn that Jay had
called him to come out to the shop and see the fruits of his labor.

Jay was a prince amongst men. He showed no favoritism, was even handed and
totally fair in his dealings with the guys in the shop. He was easily the
best supervisor they had, and was liked by all, yet he was pretty much all
business as far as his job was concerned. Strangely, he was promoted
from the ranks, just as the others were. Where he got his incredible skills
at handling people I don't know. Prior to his promotion to lead man, he
was a jig borer operator. I guess some people have a gift!

Harold


Like everything else in my life I had to put in some effort to learn .
When first made a shop foreman at 18 I thought I had all the skills I
needed for the job . Yea right . Took me a while and a few not so kind
pointed comments from my Dad to see the facts . On the other hand once I
knew I needed to learn I put in the extra effort . Found out what made a
good supervisor , fine tuned that to fit me and more or less got it right .
Ken Cutt

"Ken Cutt" wrote in message
...
snip-


Like everything else in my life I had to put in some effort to learn .
When first made a shop foreman at 18 I thought I had all the skills I
needed for the job . Yea right . Took me a while and a few not so kind
pointed comments from my Dad to see the facts . On the other hand once I
knew I needed to learn I put in the extra effort . Found out what made a
good supervisor , fine tuned that to fit me and more or less got it right
..
Ken Cutt


All I can say is congrats on your success. There's no doubt in my mind I'd
be a ******* to work for. I expect way too much from people, particularly
where quality is concerned, and I have about as much tact as a BFH. It's
taken me a long time to learn how to communicate online, for that matter,
which is, really, a work in progress.

Harold