My Dad, who was a second generation machinist, was a genius ... unknown to me with my "I know everything" young punk attitude ... and the most amazing machinist I ever saw. He could literally do any job that came his way in a day ... back in the 60's-80's ... when machinists were real machinists ... manual machinists. Running manual lathes, millers, boring mills, planers, shapers, OD / ID grinders ... and he ran them all to perfection. When a job needed to be done and done right ... "Skunny" was the guy to give it to.
When I was in my late 20's and looking for my place in the world ... he took me under his wings and got me a job in the shop where he was a supervisor and taught me all the machines. I had come out of school with an Associates Degree in Mechanical Engineering ... ya, I knew nothing about the real world of cutting chips. He taught me turning ... milling ... grinding ... everything. Years later when I went to work for Mori Seiki and started living in the world of CNC ... it all played a role in my life ... every lesson.
Including this one ... his phrase still rings in my ears.
I was working on a radial drill in the early years and was drilling some holes in plate. Using my "I know everything" attitude ... I set up the job and started drilling. Everything was going great until I took the plate off the drill table ... and realized I drilled 2 of the holes not only through the plate .. which was the job ...BUT THROUGH THE DRILL TABLE AS WELL !! To my horror ... there were 2 gaping 1/2" holes right through the drill table.
Well ... with my tail between my legs I set out to find the old man ... I didn't know what to do and thought for sure this was it ... big trouble.
He walks over the to the table and looks down ... and gives me that phrase that still echoes in my head "Well, one of the signs of a good machinist is one that can hide his mistakes. Let's fix it."
We proceeded to make a couple of cast iron plugs with a press fit ... pounded them into the holes and then machined them and polished them flat to the table surface. It helped that the shop we worked in was actually a machine repair / rebuilding facility. We rebuilt machinery so taking the table off and machining the table was pretty much normal work for us.
When we were done ... it was perfect ... you could never tell what happened.
As life turned out ... years later I went to the factory of Mori Seiki in Japan for training. Long story short ... we wrote a practice turning program ... loaded it into the machine and were test running it. Well not so good ... the tool turret scraped against the chuck as we were doing some boring ... and scored the face of the turret a little. Watching the tool and not the clearance. Well ... my Dad's phrase echoed in my head as we took off the turret and sent it to the grinding department for a touch up.
Whenever these types of instances happen ... I guess you could call it a self inflicted "screwup" ... my Dad's words still echo in my head. What do you think? True statement? Is the sign of a good machinist the fact that he can virtually make anything ... when it comes to his trade of metalworking?
Kenney Skonieczny - President
Kentech Inc.
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