David Sanders

Musings of the Mad Scientist – Those Rusty Skills – Machinists & Tool Makers
December 20, 2007

A coworker of mine, specifically our customer service manager refers to me as her favorite mad scientist. Another coworker our senior estimator constantly stops in to check my latest concoction of automation wares he affectionately refers to as my toys. This attention most likely stems from the fact that my office is part office part automation lab. A habitat I developed long ago.

Modern offices are adorned with framed art and motivational wares, family pictures, and the occasional once-in-a-lifetime event such as a sky dive or an Everest accession. My office, well I do have the one framed poster of the American Bald Eagle with the caption “Leaders are like eagles they don’t flock together you find them one at a time” behind my desk, otherwise my office is a lab.

Books? I got books on everything from heat transfer to implementing PFEMA. I have books from the college textbooks I purchased and the coveted hand me downs from engineers who taught me the fundamentals no institution can deliver.

At any point in time you may enter my office and encounter a clean organized environment… other times… well its organized chaos. I have my solid walnut desk my mother and I (yes I said mom) purchased at a second-hand office supply some 15 years ago. Then there are my overstuffed bookcases with the aforementioned library of reference materials. I might add some bookcases are melamine others are dark wood a nice contrast. Then there’s my workbench a 32” door purchased at Home Depot placed atop two (2) drawer file cabinets, above that a nicely powder coated piece of 16 gauge sheet metal adorned with two long rows of DIN rail.

I am very fortunate I have the “toys” the hardware a whole network subnet to monitor plant activities and run my own personal SCADA system right from the confines of my “Engineers Cave” and I love it!

You have read here before I love cool stuff! Don’t get me wrong I don’t acquire cool stuff for the sake of being cool I purchase economical components and even write my own code from time to time to save money. I love my job! Engineering is cool! Creating, building, developing, it’s a great fun job! It’s not always easy though.

I have been absent from my blog for sometime due to a major capital project. I took it upon myself to design, build, and program a new oven control system. Man was I rusty!!   The old saying “if you don’t use it you will lose it” holds true. So use those skills you have acquired daily and never let the rust set in.

I had good intentions with my last blog back in October. I wanted to take you on a journey from concept to commissioning of an in-house project I just recently completed. Not so. It turns out the more you give management the more they want. Come on let’s face it what is simple to you and me is complex and magical to others. We take our skills for granted sometimes.

What you know and what you understand are two different things. A play on words if you will but in the end what you “really” know is more acquired knowledge, a trial of your past experiences, a sum of who you are.   Knowledge is great and the foundation of learning that should be past down to the next generation. There in lies a gap today with modern engineers.

I was lucky enough to learn many things from some “old timers”. Tool Makers NOT machinists, there is a difference! Tool Makers work close machinist work within tolerance. No offense machinist but your job is to get it out quick and right. The Tool Makers job is to make it once and make it perfect!

Anyone can drill a hole. Machinists can drill a thousand holes within tolerance perfectly fitting form and function. Tool Makers don’t drill holes they “create” them. There is a difference.

Have you ever met a real Tool Maker? What about a real machinist? I have and believe me they are different folks. Machinists make things fast, repetitively over and over everyday. Tool Makers make things once and they make them right and accurately. These differences are vast and great. A machinist works efficiently whereas a Tool Maker works methodically. Don’t get me wrong I am not knocking the machinist I am simply saying there is a difference.

Much can be learned from both Machinist and Tool Maker alike. A machinist can teach you accuracy and efficiency a Tool Maker can teach you perfection! We need them both in our world unfortunately they both are dying breeds. Trades are losing to MBA’s and college degrees. Trades are falling by the wayside because somewhere “hard work” has become a detriment replaced with imitation sheep skin. You got the degree do you have the skill?

I said all that to say this. You can go so far on your degree. You purchased it. You learned under professors whom the majority never garnered real world experience. In the end you still need that blue collar guy or gal to make it happen. You still need that Machinist, you still need that Tool Maker, and you still need that electrician, that plumber, that constructionist, that janitor to make your dreams & designs into reality.

I’m not knocking a college education at all. I am saying that we need to wake up and stop discrediting our youth who pursue the trades! We need to support them, lift them up and let them know that their job is as important as any other. After all who will clear that clogged pipe in your house at three in the morning? Who will build that next hospital, that doctors office, that chemist lab, that clean room…the trades…that’s who!

Links of the day:

http://www.ibew.org/

http://www.ua.org/

http://www.trade-schools.net/directory/trade-schools-directory.asp

http://www.skilledtrades.ca/

http://www.boilermakers.org/

http://www.carpenters.org/

http://www.goiam.org/

Posted by David Sanders on December 20, 2007 | Comments (2)