Machining.Blog® is a weekly blog focused on manufacturing career development. It features blog articles on the fundamentals of manufacturing for aspiring machinists. Our goal is to create an interest in manufacturing in the USA. Our writer Matthew Schowalter has worked in manufacturing for 24 years, and he covers the topics that matter to someone starting their career in manufacturing.
“The soft skills the machinist uses are the unseen tools in their box and can directly impact the success or failure of a dreamed after machining career.”
All in Machining
In today’s competitive job market, more people are looking for careers that offer stability, good pay, and room to grow. Modern manufacturing is a high-tech, fast-evolving field that plays a critical role in the global economy. If you're weighing your options, here’s why manufacturing is a smart career choice.
Cardinal Manufacturing in Strum Wisconsin is a school-based manufacturing program that operates both as a class and a business as well. The students gain real world life experiences while enrolled in the program. These experiences include problem solving and working in professional roles.
In my twenty-four years of manufacturing experience, I have discovered that manufacturing can be a great industry to work in. I started as a youth apprentice in machining and then served a registered apprenticeship as a Tool and Die Maker. Over the course of my time spent in manufacturing, I was a team leader and a manufacturing engineer.
Machining and Tool & Die Making is what I have spent most of my career doing. There is something to be said for being able to turn a raw piece of material into a complex finished part. Through all my roles in the machine shop environment, I have identified a few soft skills, hard skills, and technical skills to have mastered if you want to be a great machinist.
A few years ago, I learned about the Cardinal Manufacturing business in Eleva-Strum High School in Wisconsin. I was invited to attend their workshop on how they built their program in their technical education department. It was such an inspiration to hear how engaged the students were and how they were learning solid employability skills.
CNC is an acronym for Computer Numerical Controlled. CNC is a type of machining practice. Besides CNC the other type of machining is manual machining. In CNC machining the workpiece is held in the machine and the CNC Programmer writes code so that the CNC machine can machine the workpiece. The CNC Machinist sets up and operates the CNC machine and oversees the machining process.
My first project in technical collage for tool and die making was to make 1-2-3 blocks. I milled the blocks oversize to leave stock for precision grinding. After drilling and tapping the holes in the blocks, we case hardened them. The last process was to precision grind them to size. The grinding process involved both grinding to blocks to size and to a squareness tolerance.
With the shortage of manufacturing workers in the United States we must start to investigate the situation closer to fill the jobs of today and tomorrow. Besides the worker compensation, benefits, work environment, and career development topics that may influence career decisions in manufacturing, we should now look closer into the following topics.
When you ask what machining means to me, I could go on for hours with stories about how I made complex parts on machines that are even more complicated than the parts themselves. Machining is by far more interesting than what most people know. From the challenges of implementing new complex equipment in the shop, to CNC programming, or even making complex parts in one setup. It is a career choice that most do not know how advanced it can be, especially the machining of today. Now, we can make parts in one setup that were once made in many setups on multiple pieces of equipment over a long-time frame. My career is a success story in manufacturing technology as I have embraced the technology of today and here is how I made it happen with six simple steps in career success.
A cobot can add a lot of value to the manufacturing process in a machine shop. It can increase the productivity of the CNC machine, while also contributing to process accuracy and consistency. Cobots can be easy to program and are safe to use.
Cardinal Manufacturing is a student-run business in the Eleva-Strum High School. In a student-run business the students are responsible for all aspects of the business. It is a custom job shop that makes machined parts for community members and people throughout the country. Check out this video on the program.
Gage blocks (also known as gauge blocks) are inspection tools that are used in the machining industry. They typically come in an 81-piece set and the sizes in the set are as follows:
While spending much of my career working in the medical machining industry, it was an education into complex part machining. What is being done today in the machining industry is exceptional. Now a highly engineered part can be made compete in one setup in a machine that can turn, mill, drill, hob, broach, thread whirl, and gun drill parts. I have implemented lathes from 5-axis models up to 11-axis models. Here is a breakdown of what it might take to implement advanced lathes.
Production machining means making a lot of the same parts with great accuracy. Factories use machines like CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines, Swiss machines, and multi-axis turning machines to do this.
Machining could be a stressful job, but it is as stressful as you make it out to be. For example, there are many things to consider when machining parts, like quality issues, time deadlines, and machining conditions. These items may be stressful when you look at everything at once, but if you form a plan with many individual goals to meet it will add up to the end goal of making a quality part and on time.
