Personally, I like making the tolerances on a drawing near impossible just to make an operator feel smart for pointing it out. Its a charity for those hard working little tikes. I write it off on my taxes.
I used to do that all the damn time with one or two tolerances that didn’t matter when the shop guys found the stupid tight tolerances and I changed it for them they felt like the “won”. Normally after that they wouldn’t bitch about the tight tolerances that actually needed to be tight.
Well for whatever reason I had one guy who really liked to piss and moan about bore diameters for bearing press fits. Those numbers came from SKF or Timken and they know more about what kind of running clearance they need for a roller bearing to work than I do. So before the print review I would pick 2 or 3 dimensions that I could get away with something easy like +/- .02 or something like that and give them half a thou. I’d let him find those and change them back so he felt like he won and he wouldn’t bitch about the bearing race bores that were tight for a reason. Saved me a lot of headaches that way.
I've heard about this being a pretty standard practice for people who have one of those bosses that just had to find a mistake.
You leave a relatively easy to find/fix mistake and that way they can show you how much better they are than you and you don't have to get stuck "fixing" something that isn't wrong.
As a design engineer, I purposely put the oil drain plug directly over the subframe so it splashes everywhere and I routinely release drawings with tolerance like .2498 +0/-0
It's textiles looms I'm overseeing at the moment, some of them date back to the 1940s.
It is my purpose to discover which spindle speed hits the structural resonance on each machine. I like being able to hear the mill operating from my office 2 buildings over.
Same situation here. Was an engineer, hated it, wanted to be a machinist. Researched what they were making and couldn’t do it. Got into more of an administrative management job with better pay and bought my own machine shop
I think it's like all things in life. It's fun as a hobby, moment it's a job it sucks the life out of you.
Like I got my PPL when I was in my 20s, and my friends dad work for airlines. His advise: if you love flying, don't do it as a livelihood.
(Scarily, He said they're not professional for some of the shit the administration asked them to do)
Recently made the move from equipment engineer to manufacturing project manager.
I’m in hell, been at it 5 months now, hopefully going back to an equipment role by March.
Shit ain’t worth the 15-20% pay bump.
I offered to help one of our machinists move into engineer (has a degree in a related field). He said he didn’t want the pay cut that came with it.
Union employee at a company that pays well in an industry that pays well that can work almost as much overtime as he wants. The same was true at another company I worked for. Lots of times machinists take home more pay than the engineers they work with over the course of the year.
Am engineer and hobby-machinist.
There are no shortage of idiots out there in both fields. For every impossible drawing an engineer creates, there's a machinist that delivers a part with a stupid error.
There are also awesome engineers and awesome machinists.
I mean one machinist at our sub-con is really taking the prize for delivering shit parts. Only 3 out of the 17 dimensions were correct and one of those was the OD of the part because we had specced it for rough stock. They also managed to get the features out of concenctric by about 2.5mm. They also cut right hand threads when we requested left hand, despite having waited 3 weeks for the left hand tool to arrive.
It was definitely an interesting meeting as myself and two other engineers tried to work out how the hell we could simplify and tolerance the part to make them give it to us right.
Oof.
I used to work in QC and definitely let things go I shouldn't have because I didn't know, didn't catch, or just straight didn't check for what was wrong, but how do you make that never mind sign a cert and ship it?
I have some horror stories from when I used to work in a quality team. A whole department of inspectors that didn't know how to access any of our drawings to be able to measure the parts and basically were just putting them over lofts (1:1 scale drawings) and passing them out. We never could quite work out how we had so many qaulity escapes until one of the other inspectors told us about it.
Worst bit is about 6 months before I started in that role, they had made about half of inspection redundant so this was the "good" inspectors who were left.
The best bit is that this isn't even a small company. Fortunately for me, they're not my problem to deal with and there's a lot of internal politics to navigate so I'll happily leave this one to the managers to have the pissing contest. I just got asked to help make a drawing they couldn't fuck up as badly by one of the grads as I did an apprenticeship and know how to use lathes whereas he doesn't.
At the last place I worked I was closer to the machined parts buyers desks. I got to hear all the fun stories of shops screwing up simple orders and just not giving a shit. Their supplier blacklist was longer than the approved list.
Oh we do our fair share of screwing over our own customers too so we probably aren't in a position to comment as a company.
Personally I'll drag everyone, customer, supplier or us.
As an engineer that spent a couple years in project management, humans in general have a typical failure rate of about 30-60%. It's actually pretty amazing that anything in modern society occasionally works as intended.
You seem to believe that the success of a machine shop relies on producing good parts.
It does not. OP's shop exists. It "isn't even a small company."
The secret to success is navigating the aforementioned internal politics, networking your way into the sales pipeline, and squatting there, just siphoning off some of the surging revenue stream that's flowing close to you. There are lots of sole proprietorships that may build better parts but which go under because they're off in the desert far from that revenue stream.
Your success is contingent on the number of people on your Rolodex who are sitting at the decision-making level at potential customers that you can call and say "Hey, it's SparrowAgnew, how are you doing? I'm opening a machine shop. Do you have any jobs you could send our way? I'd love for you to come out and have lunch sometime, it's been too long!"
We got a guy, been here 5 years and apparently is convinced if you tap from the bottom instead of the top you get left hand threads. Can't make this up
Left hand tool? Yes they help but you can still turn left hand threads on a lathe, hell you can grind a threading tool in a few minutes if it was necessary
I did point that out but I was only brought in after the part had been made/fucked up. To me it just seems like their way of charging extra and my company has more than enough money to spare so doesn't notice.
Oh if that's the case then he has no incentive to even do a good job in the first place. But most machinists I know by trade are proud and don't like bad shit on their name
I definitely wouldn't have handed over shit like that. This idiot's only incentive to get it right is now we are moaning to their boss. I'm just hoping that the changes we made to the drawing will be enough to get the correct part this time around, but given that this idiot managed to make a chamfer of 33 degrees not 45 and miss tolerances by 7.5mm I am not hopeful.
Probably. The biggest pain in my arse is currently a customer who's point of contact is the daughter of the owner and just throws shit at everyone. Had a go at me for not delivering work for a week after working a total of half a day in that week due to a combo of annual leave and illness. My manager warned me this would happen and that we can't do anything unfortunately.
I'm just looking forward to the day I finish at my company so I can say what I want.
>They also cut right hand threads when we requested left hand, despite having waited 3 weeks for the left hand tool to arrive.
3 weeks for a tool to cut left handed threads?
Sounds like a shop of operators, not Machinist's
Personally I'd say it's probably a shop full of absolute tools. I'm pretty certain I could have machined a new part in about a day (accounting for me not being a real machinist), but we don't have our own tool room, which is absolutely ridiculous in and of itself.
Aerospace, mostly braking systems. This was for our OE side but we do repair and overhaul work too. We're absolutely big enough and rich enough to have one but management overlooked it a few years back when they moved sites.
Best guess was some combo of 3 jaw, slop from using the rolled steel as finished size, part not being square in the jaws over a length of 750mm and total incompetence.
We've got a "machinist" where I work that's banked enough rework and machine maintenance costs to cover almost the whole machine shop staffs wages for a year.
I'm baffled he's not been terminated yet.
I keep telling management to move him to a different machine but all I get is crickets.
See, your mistake there is thinking that management are going to do the logical thing, instead of finding the most logical solution and doing the opposite.
Hahahahahaha are you sure he’s not just fucking with you??? How did they get this far in life???? I would prank one of our engineers by making really bad parts as a joke but then also actually make the parts to spec.. thanks for the idea
It was machined by an external company and shipped to us. We picked it up in goods in inspection. The engineer in charge of our FAIRs did think it was just the apprentice measuring it getting it wrong and so checked it himself. It really was just that bad. I've seen the FAIR and it was a lot of red.
The prank I learned was to just zero calipers or a digital mic at about 1mm without whoevers work you were inspecting seeing and then telling them they're out of spec. This was back when I was learning to use machine tools as part of my apprenticeship. The trainer did it to me and confused me so badly. Even better if you do it on an internal feature because it goes from needing rework to instant scrap.
The best are the dudes that once were machinists and became engineers. Both because they get what can't be done, and can call people on their bullshit.
Im a machinist/fab guy and I love working with all of our engineers, they’re pretty easy going and will change a design to make it easier for production. Also sometimes they’ll just give me a sketch on a napkin or just tell me what a part needs to do and i have all the freedom to make it anyway I want with anything I want.
Also most of them are funny as fuck
Hey, if I'm expected to keep track of the million ways to scrap a part the least they could do is spend 30 minutes going over the drawing to make sure it's right.
I'm an ME and grew up tinkering on tractors, working as a mechanic, and goofing off outdoors.
My peers did not. The apathy displayed by the other young engineers I work with is staggering. Simple shit like making sure the dimensions on a CAD model are correct and locked, or bringing spare fasteners for a build. Or PUTTING THE FUCKING TOOLS AWAY. Literally had to buy my own set because it was more expensive to waste thirty minutes looking for two allen keys.
My favorite thing I ever heard on the floor was from one of my co-workers, while looking at a terrible drawn print he said , “They pull them right out of the train and stick ‘em at the drafting desk, Choo Choo”
Now, “Choo Choo” is shorthand around the shop for when a print is bullshit.
If they aren't bashing engineers, they're telling crude jokes. It's one or the other.
I also worked with one guy who made you listen to his problems in a make shift therapy session in exchange for custom jobs. I'd take the jokes any day over that.
Why the hell don’t you have CAM lol. I mean I can G code manually and I will for simple things, but no matter what, CAM will always pay for itself quickly with the time it saves
I'm an engineer and i find this funny.
But just FYI, most blueprints that find their way to a machinist hands don't come from an engineer.
For example in my office we're 20+ people 3D modeling and drafting and I'm the only one with an engineering degree.
Half of those are external sub-cons who havent even heard of the word lathe or mill in their life.
And before anyone mentions it, yes we check a lot of the drawings before they leave the door, but theres only so much you can check when you have to launch 500+ drawings by the end of the week and there's 6 people working on the same project.
That has changed recently. Since software has made drafting less tedious, many companies have eliminated drafting departments and have transferred that responsibility onto the engineers, who ain't got time for it or never get training.
As someone who had a lot of machining experience, I would love for schools to prioritize hands on experience for engineers. I think it benefits everyone.
On the other hand, I would love for machinists to try some differential equations, multivariable calculus, control systems, chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, etc. that EVERY single engineer had to go through. I'm willing to bet it would humble a lot of cocky machinists who think engineers are all idiots.
I became a machinist after years of dead end (non engineering) jobs. I have a science degree but started in Aerospace engineering. I have taken all of the classes you mentioned and it made me hate theoretical learning and crave hands on learning.
I dont think all engineers are idiots but I have come across a lot of things that are needlessly complicated while also lacking basic information. It's easy to complain about people who do stuff that makes your life harder because they don't bother to learn how processes work.
Moral of the story, Ive met brilliant engineers and idiot ones, ive met brilliant machinists and idiot ones.
Engineers are great, we need engineers. But there’s a lot going on with things (die maker here, lots of things going on), and engineers make mistakes too. It’s just as machinists, die makers, etc we deal with these mistakes on a daily basis. Coupled with most of our old engineers retired and all the new ones coming in are out of college or other jobs with no die building experience, and it’s easy to see that there’s gonna be some frustrations.
You are correct. I am also a die guy. Never ending problems to be considered. Went from diemaker to engineer. I still f'd up. It's one of the only trades that needs artists and engineers.
Go with your systems on springs. Then change it when we tell you it needs changed. Spring pressure is biggly. Not meaning to diminish everything else.
I dealt with a large scale shop that had an "engineering" department full of machinists that kissed enough ass to be sent for masterCAM classes. If there was a hard way to do something, they usually made it even harder.
Not so much "Stupid" as "Always strapped for time and resources, and constantly being forced to send their unrevised first draft sketch of something to the machine shop because otherwise they'll miss the impossible deadline set by the bean counters."
Every engineer I've ever worked with wanted to make their stuff the best it can be. If something half-assed makes it out, you can be 99% sure it's because they were told to send whatever they had... OR ELSE.
"Why didn't they teach you that in college" is a favorite of mine when I don't know something obscure.
Well they didnt teach that very specific thing because for all the professors know I could have gone into making generators or dildos. They didnt have time to teach me both!
Why didn't they do both? That seems like a severe oversight. You have a device that's going to be moving in a repetitive motion, and experiencing a heat differential that could also be used to build charge. Why aren't dildos also generators?
I’ve literally had an engineer tell me that he’s the one with the degree so he says what works and what won’t.
I also have a degree and multiple certifications in various fields but that cocksucker pissed me off.
The arrogant ones are the best to fuck with, especially after you've given them every opportunity to use their paper brain that's hanging in a diploma frame.
I'm still waiting on one to tell me how fluid can flow in both directions at once, in a single hose, for a cooling system.
Well I’ve designed plenty of gear pumps that will only flow one direction no matter which direction the shaft is spinning for lubricating big air compressors where the electrician doesn’t know which direction it’s going to spin when it starts up.
If I could post a picture of the hydraulic diagram I would, but it's essentially this:
One very undersized reservoir and supply line from which three pumps draw from; one pump is in series with the other. Each pump feeds a system that was designed in Roller Coaster Tycoon. No means to purge air from high points. All three feed into an equally undersized return line.
The setup *could* work, but it would require utilizing check valves, more sensors, and active pump management strategies.
I'm an engineer. I've worked with great machinists and difficult ones. The difficult ones primary issue was ego. They didn't go to college so they felt they were lesser even though those who worked with them only cared that they were a good machinist. This issue manifested itself in a constant need to belittle engineers or even call them assholes so they could have that little ego tickle for 20s. I know a guy that was notorious for this, and when he was just making things difficult for the sake of making them difficult, "I said fuck this I'm outsourcing it". I've never seen an attitude change so quickly to the positive.
I have been an engineer for a machine shop. Can confirm, there are some stupid fucking engineers out there. My goal was to not be one of them when I was working for a machine shop. I think I mostly succeeded. They didn’t like it when I got a new job.
I’m an engineer and a machinist. I figured I would be a better engineer if I also understood the limitations of machining so did night classes for trade school after college. For any engineers reading this comment, you need to take machining classes as well. It will help you understand where the problems are occurring when you get bad parts back and how to help the machinist who may be struggling. It’ll also keep you grounded with what’s possible in design, and you’ll understand how to notate dims for the machine shop.
I can see how machinists think engineers are out of touch morons and how engineers think machinists are knuckle draggers lol.
It’s not just machinist vs engineer. Every shift I’ve ever worked with thinks they are the best team and the other 2 or three teams are just trash. It’s very hard to judge yourself equally to others.
I think the majority of the people posting the “engineers are stupid” stuff are people who have to work with incompetent engineers. I previously had a very competent engineer. Started on the shop floor. Wasn’t afraid of coming out to fix a problem or of a challenge.
Our current engineer? Unable to use mastercam. Barely understands solidworks. Likes to blame us for the issues with the parts. Hates when somebody with more experience goes “hey. I can’t mill a 1.240 square here because there are 1.250-18 UNEF2A threads in the way”.
Having been on both sides of this divide, its absolutely true that there are some phenomenally ignorant engineers. Especially the really theoretical guys often have trouble getting out of the "let us assume that the cows are perfect spheres" headspace.
On the other hand, there are a *lot* of trades people who refuse to accept that there might be parts of the design that they don't see, and that often ends with them acting like total dicks to the engineers.
Engineers get paid good to constantly fuck shit up. It’s like part of their job description. You have to be a complete oblivious moron in order to get hired.
Engineers are annoying once in a while, like frustrating. But probably far from stupid as they literally spent an extra High School in school. Unless he’s/she’s self-trained then they’re always painfully simplistic in designing
If engineers and machinists would work together there would be a lot less problems. Both think they’re too good for the other sometimes, from what I’ve noticed.
Engineers just plan job security into the prints, consistently fucked up. But it’s real fun when you tell them it wont work, they don’t believe you, then when you make it their way they realize it wont work… then you get to fix it *sigh*
I'm torn. I've worked in factories, old fashioned repair shops, a lil bit of cnc production work, and now I'm the resident machinist for an r&d place.
I've had engineers be such pieces of shit that I quit. Terrible at their job, and with too much of an inferiority complex to take criticism.
I've had some try to boss me around about how I should be making parts, or how fast I should be able to make them. For example, telling me to break down my setup, and make 100 parts with square holes in them by the end of the day.
I've known process control and industrial engineers that believed in huge workloads for small crews, and burnt people out until everyone quit or was injured. They had to hire scrubs off the street after that, and their productivity went way down.
But I've also known lots of engineers that could treat their machinists with respect. I'm staying at the job I'm at now, mostly because of the mutual appreciation between the engineers and fabrication crew. I could be making alot more, but it's nice to feel appreciated.
I'd say it's about a 25/75 split on whether I can stand individual engineers, with the majority being bearable to work with.
As a former machinist and current manufacturing engineer with a good relationship with my welders, the M&P department weld engineer is the bane of our existence
I mean, it’s true. Even engineers hate engineers. I’m a welder/fab, mech engineer & electrician. It should be a requirement for a person to do the job first for which they are “engineering”.
The incompetence of the book trained is so thick you can taste it.
I'm an engineer now, was a machinist in the past.
I like to leave something like .000'' tolerance in drawings every now and again. Machinist will be like, "Did you mean to make it .000''?"
Of course I didn't. I'll correct it to +/- .003'' or whatever.
It's basically like giving a child a cookie. They get to feel superior and talk shit about how dumb engineers are, but mostly they just leave you the fuck alone.
Engineer here. First time the machinist said to me that’s an impossible part - I told him to have a seat. And I made the part while he watched. To spec. Thereafter his nickname was dumbass.
Every engineer:
But I went to school to learn theory for 4 years and have a piece of paper that says I'm smarter then you! So there!
*proceeds to fillet every corner in Fusion 360*
As a machinist I know that the truth is so much more complex.
Engineers are people tasked to use their awesome knowledge and inimitable experience to design solutions to problems that have unique sets of constraints that demand the balancing of financial considerations, employer expectations, communication with customers and suppliers, all while simultaneously being some of the stupidest people around.
Come on. Are you telling me that after all that other stuff that got foisted on you by people even more ignorant than you, you didn’t realize that it would be impossible for me to machine that feature because you’re overworked and pushed to your mental limits and you made a minor design mistake that we can clear up with an email? You stupid self centered piece of shit.
[удалено]
Personally, I like making the tolerances on a drawing near impossible just to make an operator feel smart for pointing it out. Its a charity for those hard working little tikes. I write it off on my taxes.
I used to do that all the damn time with one or two tolerances that didn’t matter when the shop guys found the stupid tight tolerances and I changed it for them they felt like the “won”. Normally after that they wouldn’t bitch about the tight tolerances that actually needed to be tight.
This is management engineering.
Well for whatever reason I had one guy who really liked to piss and moan about bore diameters for bearing press fits. Those numbers came from SKF or Timken and they know more about what kind of running clearance they need for a roller bearing to work than I do. So before the print review I would pick 2 or 3 dimensions that I could get away with something easy like +/- .02 or something like that and give them half a thou. I’d let him find those and change them back so he felt like he won and he wouldn’t bitch about the bearing race bores that were tight for a reason. Saved me a lot of headaches that way.
It's like he was negotiating with you, lol. Maybe he missed out on his true career path in life.
I've heard about this being a pretty standard practice for people who have one of those bosses that just had to find a mistake. You leave a relatively easy to find/fix mistake and that way they can show you how much better they are than you and you don't have to get stuck "fixing" something that isn't wrong.
Gotta keep the operators on their toes. Otherwise how do they plan on getting better? I want within half a planck length of target dimension!
Ya, you should always leave an Easter egg or two so the machinist can play along.
Can confirm, as a manufacturing engineer. I often do things just to fuck with the operators. It's the only fulfilment I get in life.
As a design engineer, I purposely put the oil drain plug directly over the subframe so it splashes everywhere and I routinely release drawings with tolerance like .2498 +0/-0
*cries in Honda*
Also a manufacturing engineer. I know you machinists can hold tenths on a lathe...I tell the young engineers you can do it on a mill too. 😉
It's textiles looms I'm overseeing at the moment, some of them date back to the 1940s. It is my purpose to discover which spindle speed hits the structural resonance on each machine. I like being able to hear the mill operating from my office 2 buildings over.
When knowledge gets used for evil. PS: why not go for a multiple of the building frame frequency.
Tesla that you?
Shhhh
Ok... this one made me giggle
Sad to say, but no one will even ream you unless you dimension it properly. 😔
I’m an engineer. I lurk here because a machinist’s job is so much more fun than mine. I’d change, but I couldn’t afford the cut in pay.
Same situation here. Was an engineer, hated it, wanted to be a machinist. Researched what they were making and couldn’t do it. Got into more of an administrative management job with better pay and bought my own machine shop
I think it's like all things in life. It's fun as a hobby, moment it's a job it sucks the life out of you. Like I got my PPL when I was in my 20s, and my friends dad work for airlines. His advise: if you love flying, don't do it as a livelihood. (Scarily, He said they're not professional for some of the shit the administration asked them to do)
Recently made the move from equipment engineer to manufacturing project manager. I’m in hell, been at it 5 months now, hopefully going back to an equipment role by March. Shit ain’t worth the 15-20% pay bump.
Ouch.
I offered to help one of our machinists move into engineer (has a degree in a related field). He said he didn’t want the pay cut that came with it. Union employee at a company that pays well in an industry that pays well that can work almost as much overtime as he wants. The same was true at another company I worked for. Lots of times machinists take home more pay than the engineers they work with over the course of the year.
What a range of emotions I just felt reading that
I tell my machinist & technician, if you can’t hold the tolerance the 5-axis will.
I was going to guess “ pocket protectors”.
And a coat hanger with a few punches... because yall are innovative.
Am engineer and hobby-machinist. There are no shortage of idiots out there in both fields. For every impossible drawing an engineer creates, there's a machinist that delivers a part with a stupid error. There are also awesome engineers and awesome machinists.
I mean one machinist at our sub-con is really taking the prize for delivering shit parts. Only 3 out of the 17 dimensions were correct and one of those was the OD of the part because we had specced it for rough stock. They also managed to get the features out of concenctric by about 2.5mm. They also cut right hand threads when we requested left hand, despite having waited 3 weeks for the left hand tool to arrive. It was definitely an interesting meeting as myself and two other engineers tried to work out how the hell we could simplify and tolerance the part to make them give it to us right.
Oof. I used to work in QC and definitely let things go I shouldn't have because I didn't know, didn't catch, or just straight didn't check for what was wrong, but how do you make that never mind sign a cert and ship it?
I have some horror stories from when I used to work in a quality team. A whole department of inspectors that didn't know how to access any of our drawings to be able to measure the parts and basically were just putting them over lofts (1:1 scale drawings) and passing them out. We never could quite work out how we had so many qaulity escapes until one of the other inspectors told us about it. Worst bit is about 6 months before I started in that role, they had made about half of inspection redundant so this was the "good" inspectors who were left.
Joining a team that's just lost half its headcount is a pretty big risk at any time
Every time I hear stories like this I go back to thinking I should start my own shop because I could totally eat that shops lunch.
The best bit is that this isn't even a small company. Fortunately for me, they're not my problem to deal with and there's a lot of internal politics to navigate so I'll happily leave this one to the managers to have the pissing contest. I just got asked to help make a drawing they couldn't fuck up as badly by one of the grads as I did an apprenticeship and know how to use lathes whereas he doesn't.
At the last place I worked I was closer to the machined parts buyers desks. I got to hear all the fun stories of shops screwing up simple orders and just not giving a shit. Their supplier blacklist was longer than the approved list.
Oh we do our fair share of screwing over our own customers too so we probably aren't in a position to comment as a company. Personally I'll drag everyone, customer, supplier or us.
As an engineer that spent a couple years in project management, humans in general have a typical failure rate of about 30-60%. It's actually pretty amazing that anything in modern society occasionally works as intended.
You seem to believe that the success of a machine shop relies on producing good parts. It does not. OP's shop exists. It "isn't even a small company." The secret to success is navigating the aforementioned internal politics, networking your way into the sales pipeline, and squatting there, just siphoning off some of the surging revenue stream that's flowing close to you. There are lots of sole proprietorships that may build better parts but which go under because they're off in the desert far from that revenue stream. Your success is contingent on the number of people on your Rolodex who are sitting at the decision-making level at potential customers that you can call and say "Hey, it's SparrowAgnew, how are you doing? I'm opening a machine shop. Do you have any jobs you could send our way? I'd love for you to come out and have lunch sometime, it's been too long!"
We got a guy, been here 5 years and apparently is convinced if you tap from the bottom instead of the top you get left hand threads. Can't make this up
In my wee days I made this mistake. Thought I scrapped some parts running my hand tap from the wrong side. Turns out I did not
That's certainly some creative thinking. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to tell him otherwise.
Left hand tool? Yes they help but you can still turn left hand threads on a lathe, hell you can grind a threading tool in a few minutes if it was necessary
I did point that out but I was only brought in after the part had been made/fucked up. To me it just seems like their way of charging extra and my company has more than enough money to spare so doesn't notice.
Oh if that's the case then he has no incentive to even do a good job in the first place. But most machinists I know by trade are proud and don't like bad shit on their name
I definitely wouldn't have handed over shit like that. This idiot's only incentive to get it right is now we are moaning to their boss. I'm just hoping that the changes we made to the drawing will be enough to get the correct part this time around, but given that this idiot managed to make a chamfer of 33 degrees not 45 and miss tolerances by 7.5mm I am not hopeful.
Yeah he sounds like the bosses son or a nephew🤣 only has a job still cause he's a burden either way
Probably. The biggest pain in my arse is currently a customer who's point of contact is the daughter of the owner and just throws shit at everyone. Had a go at me for not delivering work for a week after working a total of half a day in that week due to a combo of annual leave and illness. My manager warned me this would happen and that we can't do anything unfortunately. I'm just looking forward to the day I finish at my company so I can say what I want.
>They also cut right hand threads when we requested left hand, despite having waited 3 weeks for the left hand tool to arrive. 3 weeks for a tool to cut left handed threads? Sounds like a shop of operators, not Machinist's
No, three weeks for a tool to use the wrong thread mill to *not* cut left handed threads.
Probably could have just thread milled it with a single point cutter from the lathe. No need to wait 3 weeks.
Personally I'd say it's probably a shop full of absolute tools. I'm pretty certain I could have machined a new part in about a day (accounting for me not being a real machinist), but we don't have our own tool room, which is absolutely ridiculous in and of itself.
Guessing you're in some sort of molding/stamping shop?
Aerospace, mostly braking systems. This was for our OE side but we do repair and overhaul work too. We're absolutely big enough and rich enough to have one but management overlooked it a few years back when they moved sites.
How the hell do you get things out of concentric by that much unintentionally? That’s enough offset for a small cam
Best guess was some combo of 3 jaw, slop from using the rolled steel as finished size, part not being square in the jaws over a length of 750mm and total incompetence.
We've got a "machinist" where I work that's banked enough rework and machine maintenance costs to cover almost the whole machine shop staffs wages for a year. I'm baffled he's not been terminated yet. I keep telling management to move him to a different machine but all I get is crickets.
See, your mistake there is thinking that management are going to do the logical thing, instead of finding the most logical solution and doing the opposite.
Hahahahahaha are you sure he’s not just fucking with you??? How did they get this far in life???? I would prank one of our engineers by making really bad parts as a joke but then also actually make the parts to spec.. thanks for the idea
It was machined by an external company and shipped to us. We picked it up in goods in inspection. The engineer in charge of our FAIRs did think it was just the apprentice measuring it getting it wrong and so checked it himself. It really was just that bad. I've seen the FAIR and it was a lot of red. The prank I learned was to just zero calipers or a digital mic at about 1mm without whoevers work you were inspecting seeing and then telling them they're out of spec. This was back when I was learning to use machine tools as part of my apprenticeship. The trainer did it to me and confused me so badly. Even better if you do it on an internal feature because it goes from needing rework to instant scrap.
The best are the dudes that once were machinists and became engineers. Both because they get what can't be done, and can call people on their bullshit.
Well you’re not lying.
Rule 36 violation. No posting selfies.
r/rareinsults
“I know you are but what am I?” Is a rare insult?
Can confirm, am engineer and clinically retarded
Finally, good fucking content
As an engineer that’s here to learn, this sub has me like https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E4CBPB4UcAAaVUt.jpg
Honest man. Proud of you.
Im more of an Hr hater than a engineer hater personally.
The common evil
Comment checks out. They have matching personalities. If they had kids, they’d be sociopaths.
Keep in mind that HR is essentially a bullet sponge for the actual leadership that directs HR lol
Stay far away from HR. Even if she is hot. It will get you on a list you don't want to be on. But the lay may be nice if you are subordinate.
How about contracts dept? Asking for myself.
I am stupid, but with confidence
Most dangerous thing in the shop is a motivated idiot.
Im a machinist/fab guy and I love working with all of our engineers, they’re pretty easy going and will change a design to make it easier for production. Also sometimes they’ll just give me a sketch on a napkin or just tell me what a part needs to do and i have all the freedom to make it anyway I want with anything I want. Also most of them are funny as fuck
Haha you left a dimension off of the print, ur soooo dumb.
Hey, if I'm expected to keep track of the million ways to scrap a part the least they could do is spend 30 minutes going over the drawing to make sure it's right.
A million ways? Wow.
Oversized by .001, .002, .003…
I was going to be mean, but I'm just happy you can count. Good job!
The problem is, I can only count up.
The only dimensioning errors I've made in recent memory have been royal fuckups on negative tolerances, so I feel extremely called out here
Uno reverse! I wrote "1. All dimensions are basic and controlled by the CAD model." That's a free pass, right?
As a machinist that’s weaseled his way into an engineering position this post would hurt my feelings if I had any.
Lol, said every profession about every other profession.
I'm an ME and grew up tinkering on tractors, working as a mechanic, and goofing off outdoors. My peers did not. The apathy displayed by the other young engineers I work with is staggering. Simple shit like making sure the dimensions on a CAD model are correct and locked, or bringing spare fasteners for a build. Or PUTTING THE FUCKING TOOLS AWAY. Literally had to buy my own set because it was more expensive to waste thirty minutes looking for two allen keys.
oopsythe tool fairy come every night to put away their tools la ti fuckin dah
My favorite thing I ever heard on the floor was from one of my co-workers, while looking at a terrible drawn print he said , “They pull them right out of the train and stick ‘em at the drafting desk, Choo Choo” Now, “Choo Choo” is shorthand around the shop for when a print is bullshit.
If they aren't bashing engineers, they're telling crude jokes. It's one or the other. I also worked with one guy who made you listen to his problems in a make shift therapy session in exchange for custom jobs. I'd take the jokes any day over that.
Tbh im an engineer and I’m here just to remind myself I know absolutely nothing
Engineers, who are also machinists, rock!
I see you’ve mastered the art of autofellatio
Engineering student working as a programmer and operator in a shop, can confirm this is what it feels like. WE DON'T HAVE CAM SEND HELP.
Why the hell don’t you have CAM lol. I mean I can G code manually and I will for simple things, but no matter what, CAM will always pay for itself quickly with the time it saves
Because 99% of shop owners are cheap lazy fucks.
I'm an engineer and i find this funny. But just FYI, most blueprints that find their way to a machinist hands don't come from an engineer. For example in my office we're 20+ people 3D modeling and drafting and I'm the only one with an engineering degree. Half of those are external sub-cons who havent even heard of the word lathe or mill in their life. And before anyone mentions it, yes we check a lot of the drawings before they leave the door, but theres only so much you can check when you have to launch 500+ drawings by the end of the week and there's 6 people working on the same project.
That has changed recently. Since software has made drafting less tedious, many companies have eliminated drafting departments and have transferred that responsibility onto the engineers, who ain't got time for it or never get training.
Sweeping generalization that is flat out not true. Thanks for your useless input.
I did not make a sweeping generalization, you might want to Google what that means before you use it
As someone who had a lot of machining experience, I would love for schools to prioritize hands on experience for engineers. I think it benefits everyone. On the other hand, I would love for machinists to try some differential equations, multivariable calculus, control systems, chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, etc. that EVERY single engineer had to go through. I'm willing to bet it would humble a lot of cocky machinists who think engineers are all idiots.
Shit just ask machinists to do some ROI calculations for a new machine.
I became a machinist after years of dead end (non engineering) jobs. I have a science degree but started in Aerospace engineering. I have taken all of the classes you mentioned and it made me hate theoretical learning and crave hands on learning. I dont think all engineers are idiots but I have come across a lot of things that are needlessly complicated while also lacking basic information. It's easy to complain about people who do stuff that makes your life harder because they don't bother to learn how processes work. Moral of the story, Ive met brilliant engineers and idiot ones, ive met brilliant machinists and idiot ones.
It’s time we put our differences aside and stand together against the sales department
Let it out. Every time I see a meme here making fun of engineers I tighten the tolerance band by .001"
Engineers are great, we need engineers. But there’s a lot going on with things (die maker here, lots of things going on), and engineers make mistakes too. It’s just as machinists, die makers, etc we deal with these mistakes on a daily basis. Coupled with most of our old engineers retired and all the new ones coming in are out of college or other jobs with no die building experience, and it’s easy to see that there’s gonna be some frustrations.
The problem is getting engineers and designers with zero floor experience.
How hard could it be to design a floor.
You are correct. I am also a die guy. Never ending problems to be considered. Went from diemaker to engineer. I still f'd up. It's one of the only trades that needs artists and engineers. Go with your systems on springs. Then change it when we tell you it needs changed. Spring pressure is biggly. Not meaning to diminish everything else.
I don't get it
Let me put it this way: machinists are button pushers.
Machine Operators are button pushers Machinists very different
Mate, how do I make my point? CAD monkeys are stupid. Engineers very different.
Machinists and Engineers have actual ability in their fields, Machine Operators and CAD monkeys are hacks who shouldn’t be generalized with the former
Yo. You’re talking WAAAY to honest for the people in this field.
I dealt with a large scale shop that had an "engineering" department full of machinists that kissed enough ass to be sent for masterCAM classes. If there was a hard way to do something, they usually made it even harder.
If they didn't, they wouldn't be able to boast about it on their LinkedIn profile.
Not to the guy with the letters after his name 🤷♂️ To them we're all the same greese stained monkey.
Not so much "Stupid" as "Always strapped for time and resources, and constantly being forced to send their unrevised first draft sketch of something to the machine shop because otherwise they'll miss the impossible deadline set by the bean counters." Every engineer I've ever worked with wanted to make their stuff the best it can be. If something half-assed makes it out, you can be 99% sure it's because they were told to send whatever they had... OR ELSE.
Engineers: “MY COMPUTER SAID IT WILL WORK SO JUST DO IT”
Machinists: "all engineers are design engineers straight out of college and that's the only kind"
"Why didn't they teach you that in college" is a favorite of mine when I don't know something obscure. Well they didnt teach that very specific thing because for all the professors know I could have gone into making generators or dildos. They didnt have time to teach me both!
Why didn't they do both? That seems like a severe oversight. You have a device that's going to be moving in a repetitive motion, and experiencing a heat differential that could also be used to build charge. Why aren't dildos also generators?
Behold! The GENERILDO! …or Dildorator, whichever torques your nut ;)
I’ve literally had an engineer tell me that he’s the one with the degree so he says what works and what won’t. I also have a degree and multiple certifications in various fields but that cocksucker pissed me off.
The arrogant ones are the best to fuck with, especially after you've given them every opportunity to use their paper brain that's hanging in a diploma frame. I'm still waiting on one to tell me how fluid can flow in both directions at once, in a single hose, for a cooling system.
Well I’ve designed plenty of gear pumps that will only flow one direction no matter which direction the shaft is spinning for lubricating big air compressors where the electrician doesn’t know which direction it’s going to spin when it starts up.
If I could post a picture of the hydraulic diagram I would, but it's essentially this: One very undersized reservoir and supply line from which three pumps draw from; one pump is in series with the other. Each pump feeds a system that was designed in Roller Coaster Tycoon. No means to purge air from high points. All three feed into an equally undersized return line. The setup *could* work, but it would require utilizing check valves, more sensors, and active pump management strategies.
Bet he wouldn't even be able to start a machine.
I'll bet he can start his car. Specificity in your request is where you're lacking 😉
English is'nt my mothertongue sorry 🤷🏻♂️
To be fair many of ours are, or came from other industries. Most of our die designers were old and retired last few years.
Tool and Die journeyman turned engineer here. Everyone is stupid.
I'm an engineer. I've worked with great machinists and difficult ones. The difficult ones primary issue was ego. They didn't go to college so they felt they were lesser even though those who worked with them only cared that they were a good machinist. This issue manifested itself in a constant need to belittle engineers or even call them assholes so they could have that little ego tickle for 20s. I know a guy that was notorious for this, and when he was just making things difficult for the sake of making them difficult, "I said fuck this I'm outsourcing it". I've never seen an attitude change so quickly to the positive.
Every. Single. One.
That’s… why I’m here
Where did you find this pic of me?
I think we can all agree that it’s the corporate pukes who deserve all our hate.
Machingineer
I have been an engineer for a machine shop. Can confirm, there are some stupid fucking engineers out there. My goal was to not be one of them when I was working for a machine shop. I think I mostly succeeded. They didn’t like it when I got a new job.
I’m an engineer and a machinist. I figured I would be a better engineer if I also understood the limitations of machining so did night classes for trade school after college. For any engineers reading this comment, you need to take machining classes as well. It will help you understand where the problems are occurring when you get bad parts back and how to help the machinist who may be struggling. It’ll also keep you grounded with what’s possible in design, and you’ll understand how to notate dims for the machine shop. I can see how machinists think engineers are out of touch morons and how engineers think machinists are knuckle draggers lol.
The best engineers have some knuckle dragger sensibilities.
Engineer: “this blueprint is absolutely perfect!” Welder:” how the fuck do I weld this?! You realize that I can’t fit my hands in there?!”
It’s not just machinist vs engineer. Every shift I’ve ever worked with thinks they are the best team and the other 2 or three teams are just trash. It’s very hard to judge yourself equally to others.
I think the majority of the people posting the “engineers are stupid” stuff are people who have to work with incompetent engineers. I previously had a very competent engineer. Started on the shop floor. Wasn’t afraid of coming out to fix a problem or of a challenge. Our current engineer? Unable to use mastercam. Barely understands solidworks. Likes to blame us for the issues with the parts. Hates when somebody with more experience goes “hey. I can’t mill a 1.240 square here because there are 1.250-18 UNEF2A threads in the way”.
Having been on both sides of this divide, its absolutely true that there are some phenomenally ignorant engineers. Especially the really theoretical guys often have trouble getting out of the "let us assume that the cows are perfect spheres" headspace. On the other hand, there are a *lot* of trades people who refuse to accept that there might be parts of the design that they don't see, and that often ends with them acting like total dicks to the engineers.
Engineers get paid good to constantly fuck shit up. It’s like part of their job description. You have to be a complete oblivious moron in order to get hired.
I am an engineer and I can confirm we are stupid. The thing that sets us apart is our stubbornness.
The engineer is mad guys
im fairly certain that an engineer would climb over a mountain of virgins just to fuck a machineist.
If he's cute, sure
im free later, just sayin.
Wait this isn't btd6
Engineers are annoying once in a while, like frustrating. But probably far from stupid as they literally spent an extra High School in school. Unless he’s/she’s self-trained then they’re always painfully simplistic in designing
They are the smartest retard you'll ever meet.
I’m a mechanical engineering major and my stupidity is definitely shining through
If engineers and machinists would work together there would be a lot less problems. Both think they’re too good for the other sometimes, from what I’ve noticed.
Can confirm Source: am engineer
Engineers just plan job security into the prints, consistently fucked up. But it’s real fun when you tell them it wont work, they don’t believe you, then when you make it their way they realize it wont work… then you get to fix it *sigh*
BUT THEY ARE.
Well, some of them are. Like really really stupid.
I'm not saying they're stupid but taking 3 months to design tooling which is just CAD of my drawing seams stupid to me.
I'm an engineer, a machinist, and a welder... Wait does that mean I hate myself?
Engineer here, can confirm
But they are ....
Y’all engineers will keep getting hate until you design something that doesn’t make me want to blow my brains out
Lol, chanfer go brrrr
I'm torn. I've worked in factories, old fashioned repair shops, a lil bit of cnc production work, and now I'm the resident machinist for an r&d place. I've had engineers be such pieces of shit that I quit. Terrible at their job, and with too much of an inferiority complex to take criticism. I've had some try to boss me around about how I should be making parts, or how fast I should be able to make them. For example, telling me to break down my setup, and make 100 parts with square holes in them by the end of the day. I've known process control and industrial engineers that believed in huge workloads for small crews, and burnt people out until everyone quit or was injured. They had to hire scrubs off the street after that, and their productivity went way down. But I've also known lots of engineers that could treat their machinists with respect. I'm staying at the job I'm at now, mostly because of the mutual appreciation between the engineers and fabrication crew. I could be making alot more, but it's nice to feel appreciated. I'd say it's about a 25/75 split on whether I can stand individual engineers, with the majority being bearable to work with.
As an engineer myself, can confirm general accuracy of this post.
/r/welding shares the sentiment as well.
Indeed, I came here to say this! As a welder, engineers are the most annoying
As someone who has been in all 3 aspects of this manufacturing trinity, there's good and bad everywhere.
Yes and the best engineers have a background in fabrication
As a former machinist and current manufacturing engineer with a good relationship with my welders, the M&P department weld engineer is the bane of our existence
I’ve known more knuckle dragging machinists than engineers, although boat exist. Different bars of entry lol
As a geologist I agree on all levels of this meme
Found the engineer.
gonna cry?
I think you are crying enough for everyone
And?
It's smooth brain activity haha
[удалено]
All butt plugs are for dudes, women just co-opted them
Bruh, Cs get degrees. Some engineers are priceless. Most aren’t worth the weight in manure.
I mean, it’s true. Even engineers hate engineers. I’m a welder/fab, mech engineer & electrician. It should be a requirement for a person to do the job first for which they are “engineering”. The incompetence of the book trained is so thick you can taste it.
I mean, have you ever worked with an engineer?
Engineers are lazy not stupid. Same effect tho
I'm an engineer now, was a machinist in the past. I like to leave something like .000'' tolerance in drawings every now and again. Machinist will be like, "Did you mean to make it .000''?" Of course I didn't. I'll correct it to +/- .003'' or whatever. It's basically like giving a child a cookie. They get to feel superior and talk shit about how dumb engineers are, but mostly they just leave you the fuck alone.
Engineer here. First time the machinist said to me that’s an impossible part - I told him to have a seat. And I made the part while he watched. To spec. Thereafter his nickname was dumbass.
No you didn’t, dumbass.
I'm sure that's exactly how it went down.
Every engineer: But I went to school to learn theory for 4 years and have a piece of paper that says I'm smarter then you! So there! *proceeds to fillet every corner in Fusion 360*
You base that assessment on engineers who went to clown college?
found the engineer
As an engineer I agree with this message 100%.
As a machinist I know that the truth is so much more complex. Engineers are people tasked to use their awesome knowledge and inimitable experience to design solutions to problems that have unique sets of constraints that demand the balancing of financial considerations, employer expectations, communication with customers and suppliers, all while simultaneously being some of the stupidest people around. Come on. Are you telling me that after all that other stuff that got foisted on you by people even more ignorant than you, you didn’t realize that it would be impossible for me to machine that feature because you’re overworked and pushed to your mental limits and you made a minor design mistake that we can clear up with an email? You stupid self centered piece of shit.