Old Timers

I started in this trade when I was still in high school. I remember when I got my first job in a machine shop. The first thing I noticed was a lot of the old guys that were machinists had fingers missing from there hands. Back in the 1970's before the CNCmachines were established in the factories,all of the machines at that time were manual machines. Some of the machines in this shop had tags on them dating back pre WW2. Unfortunately these older machines did not have the protective covers on them as we see today on the newer equipment. Therefore you would have pulleys and belts exposed in the open and sooner or later someone would get to close to the moving parts and lose a body part. I've personally witnessed quite a few major accidents in this trade. OSHA Regulations have helped a lot over the years to improve the safety of some of these dangerous machines. In future posts I'll bring up several topics discussing the new CNC machines and the old manual machines. Tooling is another example that has evolved over the years right along with the machines. So if your just starting out and want to become a machinist or if are a machinist and get stuck on certain things I'm here to try to help.