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[RipSlider]

Just been for a very scientific" tasting session of of some ( rather good ) home brew beer made by an old fella who lives in my village that I go to natter about fish keeping with. ( along the lines of "oh... thats nice... let me test it again")

We got to discussing tool and model making - and he came out with the typical "you youngsters have got it easy - you don't know what proper small scale engineering is" etc etc.

So I challenged him on that. And now I feel a good deal of shame:

After he went for a ruffle in his loft, he brought me down his apprentice book from when he was being trained to be a pattern maker ( at that point probably one of the most skilled jobs in engineering ). It was dated 1947 and this was his second ( of 8 ) years training.

One of the tasks was as follows:

Part A
Starting from flat bar stock produce the following:
hand file
Flat file
triangular file

in both a  tight and coarse tooth count

six hours allowed

Using only the files you have made, a ruler, scribe and pointer and pointing stand ( I'm not sure what these are ) file down a 3"x3"x3" steel block to a 1.5"x1.5"x1.5" exact cube.

Tolerances: +/- 0.5 degree in angle
                 +/- 1/100" length

45 minutes allowed  !!!!!   


Files I can see as possible - Ive watched files being made by hand - but your looking at a minimum of 6 there in six hours. I reckon that when I watched a file being made it took my uncle Henry ( who at the time had just won the Blacksmithing world championships - this was in the mid 1990's ) about 2 hours to make a single file, and that was a pretty coarse one.

I have absolutely no idea how you can hand file down a lump of steel in only 45 minutes to that accuracy though. 1/100" is 0.25mm! And I reckon getting the angles right must be even harder.

As of this moment I'm never going to moan about having to spend 10 minutes on the scroll saw ever again...   


Steve

[Bunkerbarge]

Accurate filing was still around as a requirement when I did my apprentiship in 1975, but not to those standards.

A common excercise was to file down a lump of metal to a perfect 1" cube, get it measured up and marked and them file it down to a 1 cm cube.  That's actually quite a lot of metal to remove.  Skills such as pattern making are a lost art but were incredibly skillful in thier day.  I have touched on it when I worked ashore for a couple of years refurbishing patterns for aluminium parts on ski lifts but I never made one from scratch.  Half the battle is understanding where the metal is going to flow through your mould when you are looking at a 3d negative in your hand!!

[GaryM]

The task was given to an apprentice!  
The gentelman sounds like a true craftsman.

I used to make small patterns amongst other things for the jewellery trade, but I did it on a 3D Deckle pantograph, so no real skill involved.

regards
Gary :)

PS did he use a B*****D file

[johno 52-11]

I came across these videos of some heavy engineering by the company that made the anchor and chain for the Titanic. Count the number of men with hammers putting the pin in an anchor!! at the end of video 1 could you imagine the health and safety allowing that today.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k_LA_R4ifYk

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nLIbObCltfQ

[kiwi]

Me Dad made one of those 1" cubes as an apprentice at the start of WW2, and kept it on the shelf in his workshop when we were kids.
He trained as a mechanic in army transport before transfering to the airforce as engineer on crash boats in the pacific. The metalworking skills he had with hand tools still amaze me now as I struggle to build my models. Looked but couldn't find it when he died a few years ago. My technical dept teacher at high school ( a friend until he died a few years ago) was an english cabinet maker and joiner, and made everything look soooo easy. Hand made a No.5  steel hand plane with presentation wooden box a couple of years before he died, and had the build published in the English Wood-Worker(I think) Magazine.
My best friend from school days trained as a pattern maker back in 1967, and the cube was one of his learning exercises. His skills with hand tools has to be seen to be believed, especially with wood.
My skills pail into the background compared to these people.
Compared to all this, my nephews current apprentiship offers very little of these skills.
Shame really.
Kiwi

[RickF]

My first workshop task as an RAF Apprentice in 1961 was to file a round bar square with the aid of calipers - I think a micrometer was considered beyond our understanding! I had that bit of brass for years, until it became incorporated in a scratch-built Midland Railway tank engine chassis.

Rick

[Colin H]

Back in the mid nineties we sent our apprentice gunsmith on a live in coarse with Mr Ted Heathcote-Walker himself a great craftsman.

One off his task's was the 1" cube but highly polished.

The scene was set as follows. A shotgun was in for repair and the 1" cube was required for this, the owner of the gun was to cycle down off the moors at nine the next morning to collect the gun for a shoot.

The apprentice duly produced the cube for Ted's inspection out came the square `angles all within tolerance`, then came the micrometre `all dims within tolerance`. But the cube was not shiny enough so the lad went back and did some more polishing. Back to Ted, out came the micrometer `to small now` said Ted better start again.

By now it was well after tea time, but remember the man was coming for his gun the next morning. The apprentice starts again and as he told me he finished about 10pm. Back to Ted, out comes the square `all angles within tolerance`, then the micrometer `all dims within tolerance` and a finish you could use as a mirror.

`Lovely job` says Ted and promptly throws the work piece into the bin `would not want to encourage vanity` says Ted lets get some supper.

The `lad` eventually became one of Britains best pistolsmiths and turned out some truly beautiful guns. That is until the government bought in all legally owned handguns and left just the gangsters with arms.

Colin H.

[toesupwa]

My Father did his apprentiship and training just after WW2, including a stint in the REME.

He became a Toolroom Engineer making pre-production '1 off's' for many a large engineering / manufacturing companies.

His skills as both a machinist (on a miller and on a lathe) and his 'by hand' work were something to behold.
Hopefully, some of his skills rubbed off on me.

Unfortunatly, the GREAT man passed away in 2000, taking skills i will never posess with him.

RIP

[farrow]

In 1966 I became an engine fitter and turner apprentice at HM Dockyard Chatham, we had to file a block of steel to a cube of those tolerances and then make a plate 4" square from a 1/4" piece of steel, then cut a hole 1" square, which the cube had to slide through using all sides to a tolerance of 5 thou. Needless to say it days of sweat and cursing, but you could not proceed until passed this trade test. But I am sad to say I had romantic ideas about working at sea and left after 2 years, some may silly but there you are, we all were young stupid some time!
Talking about lost skills, when the large nuclear lift crane was built at Chatham, the hook was 27t in weight after going to every smithy and foundry firm there was the MoD could get no one to make it. The Dockyard blacksmiths in No1 shop said okay let us have ago, you have nothing to loose. The Blacksmiths successfully forged the hook in the shop built in 1765, using a very ancient primitive steam hammer,

[sheerline]

We did the square block at engineering college back in the 60s and we hated every minute of it as it seemed to go on for weeks. One monday morning we turned up and found both lecturers away on some course or other and were told to continue with whatever we had been doing by some no-name lecturer who poked his head around the door.
After an hour of boring filing, we started eyeing up the huge shaping machine in the corner. After we wrecked some stock material in the machine, we eventually figured out how to use it and machined all our blocks down almost perfectly, finishing off with hand files to rid them of the teltale shaping machine tool marks.
The following monday, we all stood in a row with our finished blocks whilst our lecturer clocked them all and viewed us all with suspicion. It was a wonderful moment and we didn't ever have to do it again but our lecturer new something was going on as he kept dropping hints everytime we went in that workshop.

[Alastair_I]

I came across these videos of some heavy engineering by the company that made the anchor and chain for the Titanic. Count the number of men with hammers putting the pin in an anchor!! at the end of video 1 could you imagine the health and safety allowing that today.

Other than it being a rather inefficient method of doing the job nowadays and therefore likely to be frowned upon by the bean-counters, I'm not sure what the specific health and safety problem there might be.. those guys look to be experienced, competent and there is a definite practiced rhythm that they all seem to be familiar with (watch for the guy at the front as he waits for his "beat" to join in the rhythm).

[OMK]

" It was a wonderful moment and we didn't ever have to do it again but our lecturer new something was going on as he kept dropping hints everytime we went in that workshop."

Mr Sheerline, you are one of the most dudiest dudes on the planet.
I just read your piece. Then I read it again.
Have you any idea how cool you sound? You talk about your engineering in such an oh-so-matter-of-fact way - as if it's no big deal.
Ha!
Well you should try seeing it from this side of the fence - because it IS a big deal.
I mean, picture the scene... there you are, in your college shop, your usual teacher gone walkabouts and left you lot to your own devices......
You don't get it, do you?
Listen up. That teacher of yours deliberately left you to your own devices because he TRUSTED you. The dude figgered by then that you lot had learnt enough of his skills and was itching to know if all his work had paid off. In other words, that huge shaping machine was there for your benefit all along.
He was watching, only you didn't see it.
I'll bet he had just as much joy from looking at your totally-accurate finished block as you did when you were using that machine.

You engineer blokes underestimate yourselves. In fact, you remind me of Sweeper. You and he are both the same. You're both damn annoying at times because you're both sitting on all that skill, yet you never shout about it.

Rant over.

Why do educated people drink wine?

[sheerline]

Hi PMK, look here old chap, it's like this, I am in awe of an engineering friend of mine who turns out pieces of work which from an engineering standpoint look like jems and to me are pure miracles. His stuff makes mine looke like they have been hewn from the solid with a hammer and chisel!!! So you see, it's all relative as I view my abilities as minimal compared to HIS! Now, I am a great believer that everyone is exceptionally good at something so don't put yourself down here and I just know there is something you excel at which would leave us all  open mouthed!
One thing I do know is that nothing is impossible and there is always a way of achieving a goal if you have imagination and determination. I think it also pays to be a bit of a dreamer because fom that comes the urge to create something then imagination, detrmination and an ability to improvise will get you there eventually.
I know I am a dreamer, my schoolteachers used to remind me of it frequently! ::)

[Bunkerbarge]

If you ever go down to Gosport and visit the submarine museum you may be lucky enough to come across an exhibit that looks a bit strange until you read all about it.

Apparently this propulsion crown gear wheel failed on this sub and it was incapacitated and sat on the bottom.  (I can't remember the details but that was the gist of it)  No spares and a shatterred crown wheel, they were going nowhere and thier time was limited.

The engineer removed the crown wheel and completed a repair by driling and tapping the wheel and fitting a number of steel bolts to it that protruded into the geared surface, where the old teeth had been.  He then filed these bolts down to a surface that matched the pinion and was able to replace the crown wheel and get the sub back to the surface.

That is hands on engineering of a standard that none of us could even comprehend.

[sweeper]

Hi there PMK,
Thanks (I think!) for the compliment.
 I must however go along with Sheerline's line of thought i.e. everyone has talent in some department or other.
It isn't a question of "sitting on all those skills" as you put it, in my case the only thing I'm sitting on is my backside which appears to be getting larger with doing simply that.
I suppose that I have been very fortunate in serving a good apprenticeship in a range of trades, with a company that really poured resources into education and training. Coupled with the fact that I have worked over the years with some great tradesmen who were true masters of their crafts and alongside engineers of many disciplines who knew the ins and outs of many fields of work. When you have access to such data you tend to learn over a wide spectrum. Of course you can end up with a mind that appears to be full of odd bits of information - akin to a rubbish tip! But you never know, one day someone may just need to know one of the odd bits floating in the grey cells ( I think there may be two or three still working in there).
So there you have it, we are all what we are. A diverse group of people who all have their special skills and abilities. If you want to try to analyse the situation, think of it as "horses for courses".
Each of us has areas in which we are likely to struggle (let's not be too delicate about it, we are highly likely to make a complete mess of the job) while someone else could struggle in our area of skill or expertise. 
The real bonus situation is when people are generous enough to have the patience and willingness to pass on the knowledge that they possess. Thank goodness I've been fortunate to meet many such people.

Regards,
ps I certainly don't meet your definition of an educated person....... I have no taste at all for wine!
Hang on in there mate.


 

[Shipmate60]

Sweeper,
Couldn't agree more with the learning AFTER the apprenticeship by working with superb tradesmen.
Unfortunately now there just isn't the work in Manufacturing or Engineering now.
With Hourly Charges of £100 an hour it just isn't cost effective to make much now. Mostly component changers.
It used to be the boast that Portsmouth Dockyard could and did produce Anything, and I mean ANYTHING.
But now the Pattern Shop gone, Forge gone, casting Shop gone, you name it apart from a few machine shops all gone.
It isn't the workshops, it is the skills lost from these craftsmen.
My father was a Millwright, he could and did make almost anything.
Engineering is now so looked down on now that there aren't many who WANT to be Engineers or craftsmen.
Far more money and prestige in bean counting, large salary, Company Car, BUPA etc while destroying the skills base of this once world leader. Shut the Shipyards and build houses, far more profitable.
Just a very small soapbox for now.

Bob

[sheerline]

The world lost someone very precious when Fred Dibnah went. He is a shining example of someone who didn't benefit from an intense education but listened, learned and had imagination, determination and dreams. I met him once, he didn't particularly like the limelight and was extremely modest but he had fire in his belly as well as in his engine. He was extremely adaptable and achieved many things, most of which was risen from the fire like a Phoenix.
Even though I have seen the programmes and have the dvds, I still watch if I happen to catch one whilst channel hopping.
Oh Fred, if your watching, we need more like you!

[malcolmfrary]

I certainly don't meet your definition of an educated person....... I have no taste at all for wine!

I have yet to find a wine that fails to be acceptable with enough 7-up mixed in.

Agree entirely about the demise of engineering abilities and skills.  The bean counting fraternity, for all their "cleverness", have yet to figure out that they are only skimming their income from the surface without actually contributing to the substance of the pot.  Every time there is a recession, they are uniformly surprised that an un-refilled pot has become empty.

[d-jnana]

Just before the school broke up for the summer I showed some of my year 10 (4th year in old money) GCSE engineering students the task set for apprentces. They all rekoned they could do the second bit "easy."
"Well" quoth I "there's twenty quid for the first one to achieve it."
What a wonderful lesson in humility.
After 43 and a bit minutes the star pupil in the class sweating profusly brings me a block and to my utter surprise its all to spec. I grudgingly paid up, but am wondering now how I'll live it down next term. It then transpired his dad has a workshop at home, including lathe vertical and horizontal millers and a surface grinder. He did go on to say that before being allowed to use any of these his dad made him do a similar operation with files etc. Goes to show that the skills and pride are still out there. Can't wait for parents evening, I've gotta meet this guy.

GARY

[John C]

I am also a time served apprentice but not in engineering, In the precious metal trade.
If you ever went to London to see the Christmas lights and took the bus (or walked) up Regent Street, then you might have noticed the silver models of the Cutty Sark or other sailing ships and cars in the windows of the big shops (don't want to advertise)
I was an apprentice in the 70's,  of an old company in Soho (bought out by a post war entrepreneur) but now all patterns/machinery etc shipped to the far East (those that didn't go in the skip that is, make's you want to weep doesn't it).
I was taught by guys that served on convoys or in tanks in the desert & RAF aircraft fitters who put their skills to good use after the war in more productive ways, If they thought you were not giving them you're full attention at the lathe they gave you a "idiot" on the elbow with what was affectionately called a band stick.
A stick of rock to the first person who knows what a band stick is.
The thing I remember with affection, is the trouble all the apprentices went to to to be given just a part of these models to work on just so that at Christmas if they happened to be in Regent Street (with family or a young lady) at Christmas they could say "I did that bit"

John C

[Roger in France]

I have great admiration for the basic (and advanced skills) of true artisans.

My father was a plumber and I still proudly own his "Apprentice Piece" which was a hugely complex roof/chimney/gutter joint in lead produced solely with a lead mallet (ever seen one?). I can (or could!) still "wipe a lead joint" but not much call for that now.

Other than my father my greatest teacher was an old fashioned "Metalwork Master" at school by the name of Fred Cusack. He taught me so much and I like to think he saw some promise in me as he often took me to one side and showed me techniques he said he could not bother to waste trying to teach the others. Imagine my great pride when he invited me to help him make a half hull of a submarine to fill a stage for a school performance of "Morning Departure" (what was the subs. name?). Sadly after we had made the scenery I only got the part of a "shore wallah" in the play.

Fred's preferred way of attracting a bored student's attention was to drop a 7lb. hammer behind the lad!

Roger in France.

[Bunkerbarge]

Some great stories there guys and brings back many fond memories of my school days.  I was lucky enough to come through a very good school that had a superb metalwork shop, including a forge, an amazing woodwork shop, and I was a member of the first class to use it, and between the two a fantastic combined workshop where there were such things as linishers and lapidiary machines where we could play around with polishing stones and making simple jewelry.

Nowadays everyone is so terrified of little Johhny's parents suing the school if he cuts his finger that all this seems to be long in the past.  As it happens I made a pretty good attempt one day at trying to cut my thumb off with a chisel but it never occurred to either me or my parents that it was anyone elses fault but my own.

I actually took wodwork as a specialist "O" Level subject and loved every minute of it and in those days we went into the theory of woodworking tools, woods and thier types, seasoning etc.  My favourite achievement was a pencil drawing of a cross section of a Stanley plane.  I wish I still had my school books from those days!!

[polaris]

Dear All,

One of the problems these days with taking on apprentices, is their lack of understanding of the word loyalty. I would say that only two out of ten can complete an apprenticeship from beginning to end properly, and once completed, you can bet that one of the two will be off with precious little thanks - even after the wages have been adjusted.

The seemingly total lack of discipline (& even less principals), these days means they think they can do and come and go as they please. Teenagers and other animals can be taught anything, it's a question of continuity and dedication to stick to it where things can fall flat - in many cases 'other animals' win hands down!

The Nanny State, the lack of discipline, the "won't do this, won't do that" attitude, and the "won't get my hands dirty at all costs", all combine to demonstrate why we are where we are today. Yes, we would all like to be on £60k + a year, but one has to start somewhere. Seemingly, if they can't go abroad on hols. at least twice a year, get what they want in wages (what they want and what they are worth are in many cases two entirely different things), they get all upset - what doesn't seem to sink in is that after their apprenticeship is the time they really start learning what the word 'work' means (as someone mentioned earlier), and the sooner schools etc. get this fact into them while they are learning (before the apprenticeship), the better for everybody, and the fairer it is for those businesses who have to take on apprentices. I do feel sorry for some of these teenagers sometimes... they are led into believing they can do a trade, they get the basics, but that is as far as quite a few will ever get... it would help if there were people assessing the true capabilities of individuals before they go to far down a certain route, so they can be diverted into something that suits them better - saves time for businesses, and saves dissapointment with the individual.

National Service would have a more important function now than it ever had before, in that it could be used very constructively to 'develop' individuals, rather than the hit-&-miss system we have at present.

Just my thoughts that's all.

Regards, Bernard

[malcolmfrary]

One of the worst side effects of the '70s increase in unemployment, and subsequent increases, was that many large businesses deemed it unnecessary to train starters.  After all, there was a surplus of trained people.  Training was regarded as dead money.  We are now reaping the "benefits" of that policy.
Actually working for a living (shudder) making something was emphatically looked down upon by the authorities in education - can anybody remember a time when professional meant highly competent and not just having a ready set of excuses for any eventuality?
I just saw a "professional" on the news last night.  A well tanned layabout explaining how Gritish Bas was poverty-struck and thus needed to increase its prices to its customers.  Then I saw this morning that dividends of this cash-strapped outfit had been increased.

That feels a bit better now.

[kiwi]

Hi all,
Sadly have to go along with most that has been aired here.
Most people these days simply take no responsibility for their actions. As bunkerbarge said it in our day you cut your hand with the chisel, then your fault, get it sewn back on, and continue with life. You just learnt your next lesson in life.
These days, you do the same thing, it was someone elses fault for making available a dangerously (ever noticed its the blunt tool that causes the most accidents by having to be forced) sharp weapon to joe-public. Lets sue the b....d's. Etc, Etc, Etc
In my day our school woodwork and metalwork shops where similar to those encountered by bunkerbarge's, and we where taught safe workshop practices, even to the extent of being shown graphic photos of the very rare serious injuries which had occured over the years. Our teachers where skilled trades people, and instructed us well. (we did have the idiot percentage who dropped out to go do some other better suited activity). Now-a-days, similar gory graphics are all part of the computer games this young generation play, and is accepted as "normal", until it happens to them because they don't care, and hey presto, caring parent (when they get home from the night-club, see's the opportunity to get some supplimental income, and keep the local lawyer costa-brava villa stoked with bubbly. Was never little jimmys fault.
In my observations of the world, polititions, lawyers and corporate accountants, rank up there as the most useless, and cause of most of the worlds woes.
Now that If said that, can step down, feel a little better, (even knowing it wont change anything), and will let you all have the podium again
javascript:void(0);
stay happy and keep smiling, that way everyone wonders what you have been doing
Kiwi