rambelings

[compound driver]

HI
Nothing much to this one just some mixed thoughts and ideas about this most odd of interests.

About 35 years ago i sat in a cold garden shed watching my father cutting the frames for a schools class 5 inch gauge locco. I was bored stiff and as cold as all hell on a slow day. The frames seemed huge to me and more than id ever be able to make or cut for that matter.

A year or so later i was in the same shed cutting a set of frames for an LBSC shunter thinking bloody hell this mild steel takes some cutting! I was right the shunter took me 15 years to finish. During that time I bought and finished three sets of Stewart turner castings as did my brother.

After leaving school and suffering my apprentice years I had a break of some ten years before the next engine got started. During the break id found the USA and a beautiful woman named Stacey. Moving to Boston slowed the models down a bit but didnt put a stop to them. We opened a small machine shop and in the spare times I made a couple of little mill engines and gave them to the kids.

During all this I lost my father and later my mother. Sadly Mother passed away before I finished the first traction engine. Always wish she could hav e had a ride on the sodding thing!

Now i look back on the 35 years and realise the one constant has been steam engines oil and steel. Would I change anything? nope not a thing.

Im back in England now (note i call it england and not the UK LOL) and spending most all my spare time in a garden shed.

the point to all this if there is one is model engineering if we like it or not is a passing art, one that will be lost to new generations. I just wish they could know the feeling of looking at years of work sitting on a shelf and know the pride that goes into these most strange of creations

Heres to all the model engineers out there

cheers kevin

 

[rake60]

Kevin you bring up a very interesting point.

Is this a dying craft?
The machine shops, at least in the eastern USA are begging for machinists.
It's a craft that young people are just not interested in perusing.
If they are not interested in a craftsman's career that pays ridiculously
out of rage wages for a blue collar job, how would they ever be interested
in doing it as a hobby.

Rick

 

[rake60]

Don my youngest boy is a chemistry major in his forth year of college.
Only 4 more to go since he's going straight for his PhD.
He came home for a visit and said one of the R&D projects he will be
involved in this year will require an air driven, controllable pump that they
will need to design and have built for them. They searched around the
campus and local job shops for a builder. The campus offered NO help.
The local job shops said No Problem, but it will cost you $60/hr + material.

So guess who will be building the pump.

I work a mandatory 50 hours a week now at my real job. If this trend
continues how many hours will a machinist be working 10 years from now?
There will always be the single piece prototype need. To do that on a
computer driven CNC machine is not cost effective, and the good old
American greed will not be interested in a job of that sort.

Will it be an 80 year old man in his garage shop making the parts for the
first artificial lung or liver? It's a disturbing thought!

 

[Tin Falcon]

The laws of supply and demand are a funny thing. Seem like the trend is for schools to drop machine shop programs. There are plenty of machinist positions if I drive an hour.
I am hoping my son will go for an engineering degree. He designed and built his own oscillating steam engine a couple years ago. right now we are starting a pair of Elmer's Mill engines.
It seem like skilled repair techs are in demand as well.
Tin