Doing machine fabrication with lathes, milling machines, surface grinders, ect, is so satisfying when you first start getting a feel for it that many would do it for nothing. That's why I got involved with it. But the novelty of it wears off after a couple of decades,..and there always some young boys that enjoy doing it so much that they'll do it for pocket change,......just like I did when I was a young boy.
But in any event, the machinist trade has changed so much and is *still* changing so much that it bears little resemblance to the set of skills that I first started learning back in the mid 70's.
It's rapidly turning into something that I don't even recognize.
The computer revolution landed smack dab in he middle of the machine trades a long time ago and at this point, the trade is moving and morphing just as fast as anything else that involves computers.
It's already to the point that a large part of a "machinists" day is spent in front of a computer terminal.
If that's what someone wants, it's there to some extent. But it's become a very difficult trade to keep up with. The things one learns becomes obsolete very soon.
I retired out of the trade 5 years ago and it had already gotten away from me. Not that I'm complaining about it. I was ready to retire, anyway.
But anybody who is thinking about the machine trades these days needs to take a good look at what it is. Chances are it's not what they think it is,...and it's going to be something completely different in 7 or 8 years and then again 7 or 8 years after that.
I am an apprenticed toolmaker from the 70's that went into management, run the apprentice program for a very large corporation. You want the money go into industrial electronics and maintenance, you don't believe me go to the DOL website and look up potential
