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[John East]

Hi,
I have recently been offed a Job at a local college, lecturing on  Machining,Turning, Welding etc, Basic Engineering sort of stuff.
I gladly accepted the Job, but it would appear because of cutbacks, I have not started.

My question is  Does anyone think it would be worthwhile starting up on my own offering One to One personal type tutoring? Mainly Lathe work ?  Small lathes are now readily available and affordable to purchase. I am quite often asked by fellow modelers and other Mechanically minded enthusiast groups to help out with some engineering type jobs. A lot of them have Machinery, but don't know how to use it !
I have run my own Business for the last 15 years so I am aware of all the paper work insurance/ tax  issues etc. I just wonder if there would be any demand ?.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Cheers John

[tigertiger]

To be honest, the kids you would have trained were probably on training allowance. So half of them would only be turning up for the Giro. My freind teaches electronics at the local Tech, and this is what he finds most frustrating. In other words there is probably no market.

Hobbyists would probably be interested but not willing to pay more than materials costs, petrol or beer money.

However if you can pursuade a local community college to run an evening course for hobbyists then you may be in with a chance.

BUT, you will run into a whole gammut of H&S, risk assessments, etc, etc.


In short.
You could do it for beer, but I doubt you could make a living as a training business venture.

[justboatonic]

I think you'd have to do some research in your own locality rather than on a web forum. Your area may be crying out for something like this but again, it may not.

Personally, although the idea is interesting, if it was offerred near me, I dont think I'd join up. After the initial training, I'd need access to a lathe to continue. Im not sure there is that much if any demand for such a service. sorry but good luck all the same.

[sweeper]

The college I worked in ran model engineering courses for many years, very popular and well subscribed. The staff were keen and very highly skilled, all went well. Until management tried to "update" things. Engineering is an expensive form of education, machine tools and materials are pricey, edict was that all courses must be run on an economic basis. Result? Course was run down due to the costs to students and eventually the machine shop (reputed to be one of the finest in the area) was broken up and the machines sold off at giveaway prices. There are now no such courses in the area (a large centre of population). The managment achieved their objectives (1) to reduce costs (2) to remove "old" technologies and (3) to have all students sitting at a desk with a sheet of paper (cheap education) or learning how to dance or sing (the in thing in education).
An example of the stupidity, a friend (fellow lecturer) wanted to buy a beech workbench, thought it wouldn't be entertained so he also put in a silly bid for a lathe. Both accepted, a fine low usage lathe in good nick for coppers.

You could try a trawl around the local model clubs / societies to check for likely customers. There are plenty of people interested in the likes of live steam who may just form a nice little source of students for you.
Good luck.
(I'm not bitter over the failure of the technical college system, it was a good system that was ill equipped to run "as a business" rather than offering a service to the local community) 
 

[steamboatmodel]

There used to be a couple of courses offered around here at night school on machine shop work and model making, but two things killed them. The board of education started charging the same price for courses at High Schools as what the Colleges were. They then decided that everyone had to follow a set curriculum, you had to build what the teacher had set up. When the enrollment dropped they quite offering the courses. They then sold off almost all the machining equipment as the risk management team decided that children should not be exposed to dangerous equipment. The industrial process courses are now run using Lego's.
Regards,
Gerald.

[sweeper]

And I thought that the UK had the lead in stupidity! Lego?
Basically a similar situation to that faced by our college except it was purely financial.
I fancied doing a S.T. Double 10, would be quite a challenge to make one from Lego. The question of producing a boiler for the said engine would be very interesting! Unless James May could come up with a few bright ideas.

Will someone please save us from the gross stupidity of the money counters and the 'elfin safety nuggets. Our world is very quickly crumbling into rubbish thanks to their combined efforts. Could the next stage be to change engineering drawing practice to using a stick of chalk on a slate (paper is too expensive and not a green concept while pencils have sharp ends). Drawing cirlces or radii could be fun, no compasses allowed (sharp ends tut tut), but have they thought how they would erase errors? Chalk dust flying around (even from so called dustless chalk) is a definite hazard.
Ah yes, a solution! Let's spend very large amounts of cash on high spec p.c's.
Now I have my drawing - even though I've used a large amount of paper to make it a hard copy. Just how do I make the item?

Once upon a time there were places equipped with machine tools in which people were instructed in the art of producing components.....
Haven't we been here before?
(Just a sad rant from someone who feels as though they belong in a previous world).