[time-nuts] modern electronics education/jobs (was:

[Florian Teply]

Am Thu, 12 Nov 2015 18:14:57 -0800
schrieb "Richard (Rick) Karlquist" <richard at karlquist.com>:

> 
> 
> On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
> >
> > has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists
> > who can't drill a hole if the drill-press isn't
> > computer-controlled. And in my work, nurse education, I see
> > students who can't be bothered to learn how to take a manual
> > blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
> > ponder here. . . .
> 
> > Bill Schrempp
> >
> 
> This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
> freshman and sophomore years at college.  There were a couple of
> journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills.  They didn't let me
> use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
> press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
> their skills.  They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
> a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
> and a rough block of metal.  His task was to make a perfect cube with 
> sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm.  Only after mastering that, would
> he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment.  

And that's been actually quite true. Not too long ago - well, around
year 2000 - when I was just about to finish high school in Germany, we
had a class in a machine shop. We were literally given one single piece
of steel of about 10x10x20cm, and were to make a pretty nice PCB holder
out of it. The only tools allowed for most of it were a set of files
and a saw. Only after we managed to get most of the parts done according
to the drawing - and they were tested to be nicely rectangular, to size
and pretty flat on all sides - we were allowed to drill the missing
holes and tap a few threads. Only the most skilled were finally allowed
to turn the screws for the class on a lathe...

> Fortunately, the 
> machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make
> me file a perfect cube.  They did tell me I needed to learn to drill
> holes with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
> punch to lay them out.
> 
Well, 5 mil shouldn't be too difficult if some care is taken. Of course 
this also depends a lot on the material used, dull or mis-centered drill
bits certaily can destroy alignment and hole sizes easily...

Best regards,
Florian