Originally Posted by
Crius
Jerry, your Machining capabilities are rather impressive. I've been making gears for about 30 years now and I still think it's cool that you do it in the most basic manner. That's real fundamental stuff there, and it's good to see someone is keeping it alive. Nowadays everybody wants CNC. If it's not CNC they don't want it. Even though 90% of the people don't even understand what CNC is, they still want it because it's the newest and the best. That's why it kind of warms my heart to see you go old-school, Jerry. Keep up the good work.
Y'know I go with what I know, Thanks for the complement. I've wanted to go to CNC for a while for some things. I just can't get myself to stop doing what I'm doing long enough
to either convert one of my machines to CNC or buy one, learn it, learn a design package and just generally go through the learning curve. My stuff is far from perfect but it works for me..
It's the same for 3D printing. I've actually had a small 3D printer for years but have never stopped long enough to learn it. There have been gaps in my building but if I'm distracted long enough
it's for other reasons. And there's this: I was a software developer much of my life, design, develop, support, trouble shoot; learning new languages and platforms/technologies
was a never ending way of life for 45+ years. Losing myself in my shop with my way of doing things was my escape, my sanctum. I play Baroque, Renaissance and Rococo period
music in my shop and it is peaceful for me. Another lesser known facet of my past is before I made the switch to software development I had studied and graduated with a degree in chem( also
studied math) and ultimately worked for 2 years as a chemist at Varian. I mention this only because the chem lab was directly adjacent to the prototype machine shop. The PM was run by a brilliant
top notch traditional jovial master Swiss born machinist( I can still hear and see his face clearly) and was staffed with the cream of machinists- all traditional dial turners. In my free moments
guess where I was? I learned a few things during the 2 years I was there and it wasn't more chem...
I've watched with abject fascination CNC machines whizzing out parts I can only dream of, "I could use that!" I've thought to myself many times. I believe part of my resistance is based on
a subconcious fear that all the CNC'ing would somehow ruin my hobby for me, some parts would be too 'sterile', cookie cutter. Certainly not a bad thing for precision parts....If I was starting out today
CNC would likely be how I'd start but having a few fundamental skills would never hurt.
If you guys only knew the backlog of projects I have sitting here already you'd think I was nuts. Maybe one day I'll go CNC but who knows?
Jerry