Who Are We?

[Rstewart]

I'm Ryan from the rocket city.
I turned 40 few months back, so now I'm Old.
Was always interested in making things welding and machining when I was a young kid.  Much of my family was either in some kind of construction or manufacturing.  I had a uncle that always took me hunting and taught me everything I know about shooting.  He was a retired marine that worked on our local military base. 
He got me a job at his proto/fab shop as basically a gopher.
This was my real introduction into machining!  Went to community college to get my associates in manufacturing.  We finally got a CNC haas vf-2 and I was on deck to figure it all out 
We purchased MC X7 and I went to reseller training in GA.
Worked there 11 years and moved to more of a real shop (still on base) with cool shit.  Learned a lot in 4 years

Decided I'd finish by Bachelor's degree since I like money for cool shit.
Went to be a manufacturing eng at Leidos.  Wasn't terrible but being tied to a desk for 85% of the day kinda sucked, and they were woke AF.
Lasted 1.5 years.
Saw one of my Old program managers on the golf course one day and said Hey! I need a Job.  He said Sure!
Big Swerve, but I'm learning - Fire Control Systems.  I get to travel around and fire rockets/missiles and develop stuff for the field.

[Brian]

(@Newbeeee™ 's post got me inspired, so here's another TL;DR affair for you-consider yourself warned)

Man-what a great thread! I'm really digging reading about what you guys are up to....I guess I ought to fess up, too....

I'm Brian, 59 (WTF!), I live out in CA in "Silly Con Valley" with my wife of 24 years and a small herd of cats, and am the owner/operator of a 1-man-band (formerly 2, but good riddance) machine shop. I hadn't intended to become a machinist (LOL-"the first step is admitting you have a problem"), but I'll confess that it's one of a number of (mostly) happy accidents that have occurred while I was busy making other plans.

I originally thought I'd press pause for a year after HS before heading off to study mechanical engineering: I somehow had the hare-brained idea that I'd learn how to build custom bike frames and luckily got to hijack the folks two car garage to have a 300 sq ft workshop. I worked in a bike shop, met a local fellow, Peter Johnson,  who had built frames and was now a self-employed (in his own words: "self-destroyed") machinist/fabricator, worked for one of the early pioneers of mountain biking, Tom Ritchey, worked as a lab rat/technician in a local engineering company (that had a model shop-woohoo! I got to use their engine lathe on the weekends!), worked for Specialized for a year doing warranty frame repairs, and just ate/slept/breathed anything related to cycling generally and frame building in particular. I bought a used Bridgeport at auction in ~'85, and a used engine lathe about a year later, and slowly accumulated all of the necessary doo dads as I plodded along. Some of my very first machining escapades were making framebuilding-related fixtures of all sorts: designed and built a mitering fixture to accurately locate and cut butted tubing on the Bridgeport w/o having to cock the 2J head, fixtures to accurately locate braze-ons, clamp the seattube of a partially-finished frame to slot the seat cluster, alignment tooling for post-braze measurement and cold-setting, etc., etc. "Design" at the time, for me anyway, consisted of an elbow drafter and vellum, or napkin sketches and improvisation...good times! I did this thru my mid twenties and eventually realized that I needed to make a better-than-starving-artist living if I was going to stay in CA.

"Pics or it didn't happen", as they say: https://www.flickr.com/photos/65214324@N02/albums/72177720296339059 

(A few years back, some collector in TN called the shop phone outta the blue to say he'd picked up this bike from someone-don't know who, it wasn't the original customer as far as I could recall. I don't know why he bought this thing, as it seems to not fit with the other stuff he's got. Collectors are a funny lot!).

By chance, a friend of the family was a self-employed engineer/inventor who had a small business designing and building custom equipment for the disk drive industry. This gentleman asked if I'd be interested in making some parts for him, and I thought "sure-why not?" This turned out to be a great break, although I hadn't really planned it that way-it was just luck more than any really well-considered plan. Off and on for a couple of years I probably worked about 60-80 hours a week cranking out parts on the Bridgeport and engine lathe-as much work as I could stand! Some of my fondest memories of this time are when Vahak (he was Armenian) would come by the (garage) shop late at night to pickup parts, and then we'd head down to the local Denny's to eat and talk. We'd go on for several hours like this-so many good memories! Midnight til 2AM at Denny's, covering everything under the sun about disk drive stuff in particular and life in general...such a trip. 

Eventually he retired (I think he was in his mid-70's by then, but could still crank like folks half his age-he was a real force, just unbelievably creative and energetic...I think he drove his wife crazy most days), and I stumbled onto another early customer, a small local engineering firm that supposedly needed some machining from time to time (a cycling acquaintance/mech eng. who had worked there introduced us). As luck would have it, these folks had just started using Cadkey 7 DOS, and I had gotten up to speed with that just about a year prior as I was getting out of bike stuff. The owner of this co. was an older fellow who kinda got dragged into the PC world-only semi-willingly-by their largest customer at the time, and was struggling with the transition. Given his druthers, he'd have stayed on the board, but his customers would have stayed away in droves! As a result I ended up taking Fred's semi-finished designs and verbal instructions/hand waving, and making prototypes/models/anything you could sorta-legitimately make with a B'Port and lathe, helping to build/test, doing as-built documentation in CK7, etc. It was also helpful to be able to coach him thru some of his CAD teething pains, and eventually it started to make more sense for him. Again, lots of sort of on-the-fly "make yourself useful" type of work...met some interesting folks, had some good times, made decent money, stumbled onto more new customers, etc., etc. When we needed CNC work I'd give it to Peter, who had a Mori Seiki MV-40B with a Tsudakoma 4th, and an SL-25.

After a couple years of that craziness I ended up moving outta the garage and sublet space in the front of Peter's shop. He'd recently canned his last employee but was going to keep the two CNC's for a bit, and I was absolutely dying to get into the CNC side of things. My formal CNC training consisted of about a half-hour crash (wait-don't say "crash!") course from the guy that was the milling supervisor at a shop around the corner that did semiconductor work, mostly for LAM Research. Jeez, what was I thinking?....I bought one of Mike Lynch's books (CNC Concepts in Illinois-totally awesome, used to write a column in Modern Machine Shop magazine), pored over the MV-40 and Fanuc manuals, learned my CAM s/w and fucked around with the post and just kinda slogged thru it all. I'm very grateful that I was comfy with manual machining at least, and that computer stuff was second nature by that time! Some of the first things I made were cycling-related fixtures for a customer of his that made stuff for Brompton (a British mfr.) folding bicycles. After about 6 months, PJ needed to raise some funds, so the MV-40 got sold off and I bought a machine and kept plugging away. I still remember the monthly payment: $1634.80....I was grateful I'd saved when I had the chance and hadn't developed any expensive habits!

I've been "making it up as I go along" for about 20+ years now and am equal parts amazed and grateful at what I've  been able to get away with/accomplish/do in this crazy "career"-I'm loath to take much credit for how it's worked out because it has been sorta non-linear (though thankfully, mostly "forward" progress as opposed to "backwards" progress-LOL). It only makes sense in a retrospective sort of way; I could not have worked this out in advance for so many different reasons. The role that chance has played in my life gives me hope for us all. My business hasn't made me terribly wealthy (but not broke either, knock wood-we're doing OK) in any material sense, but the older I get the more I realize how fortunate I have been to be able to earn a living doing something I'd do for free! (Don't tell my customers, please).

Although I don't use MC (I use TS, like @TSmcam) I enjoy reading stuff here and over on eMc because I get a glimse of what other folks are making/how they're doing it/and how they feel about it. A long time back I realized that what was most fascinating to me about this trade/business is not so much the parts we're making (or the machines/software we're using, or what industry it's for) but the processes and purposes behind it all....not so much what what we make physically, but the interactions we have while making the stuff, the connections between all of the moving pieces, both human and technical!

[Brian]

@Leehound : Do I remember correctly that you used to make a bunch of tooling for a client who does investment casting? (Or maybe it was somebody else....I thought it was here on MCF).

FYI, the "lugs" on that bike I linked to were investment cast; I *think* the mfr of those was a Japanese co named Tange.

[Newbeeee™]

(@Newbeeee™ 's post got me inspired, so here's another TL;DR

Hahaha blame me. It's always my fault - I have broad shoulders
Cool beanz with the bike stuff.
My only involvement with tredders was designing a stem for the Animal Orange DH team in 2000.
But i went to school with the manager....
I did way more stuff on the motorbike side though - F1 (pre WSB), Endurance, IOM stuff etc for a while when i had a home workshop in the 90s

[Brian]

I did way more stuff on the motorbike side though - F1 (pre WSB), Endurance, IOM stuff etc for a while when i had a home workshop in the 90s

It seems like many (most?) folks I know in this trade had an early fascination with things with motors and/or wheels! My friend/mentor Peter was also really into motorcycle stuff but was truly an all-purpose gearhead of the highest order.

[CNCAppsJames]

@Brian any chance you know a guy named Dave Decker by chance? The Bike community in NorCal, especially that era... they all seemed to know each other. He and I are OS BMX guys. He knew Dave Vanderspek (RIP) BITD .

Awesome path man. Seriously.

[Brian]

@CNCAppsJames :That name doesn't ring a bell unfortunately, but the bike world I remember was kinda specialized or segregated in a way...we were mostly "roadies"....guys that rode or raced road bikes. Even the mountain bike scene was sorta different, although friends sorta inhabited both worlds comfortably. And I didn't have any connections to the BMX world, unfortunately.

It was great to see how various folks got into cycling; mountain bikes got lots of folks involved that wouldn't have been interested otherwise! Skinny tires and shaved legs weren't gonna do it for some folks!

I don't think I really appreciated how fortunate I was to have been in and around the Northern CA cycling scene at the time, although I was a little late to the party in a way. Still a great time, and you can't have regrets for things you can't control!

[Brian]

https://www.isolapress.com/shop/jobst-brandt

Here's a link to a book about a fellow (Jobst Brandt) who really had an outsized influence on the NorCal cycling scene. I didn't know him well, though my friend/mentor Peter Johnson did. He was quite a character!

I worked as a mechanic at Palo Alto Bicycles in '83-'84 and met him then. He would stop by Peter's shop in Redwood City when I was subletting from Peter, so I had brief interactions with him over the years.

It's kinda funny, but I mostly remember significant events in my life not so much by when or where they occurred, but by which events led to/preceded them....all of these serially-dependent things....break that chain and some entirely different reality would have happened instead. Things that in the moment didn't register at all that later proved to be pivotal.

[gcode]

It's kinda funny, but I mostly remember significant events in my life not so much by when or where they occurred, but by which events led to/preceded them....all of these serially-dependent things....break that chain and some entirely different reality would have happened instead. Things that in the moment didn't register at all that later proved to be pivotal.

That's how I became a machinist/programmer. Random events I had no control or influence over.
As a young Marine, I was sent to Aberdeen Proving Grounds to attend the Army's Small Arms Repair School.
I had a 2 week wait till the next training cycle started.

There were 8 Marines in the Army Machinist course. A couple flunked out and several got thrown in the brig over a brawl in town.

They grabbed available bodies and assigned them to the Machinist course to fill the holes.
I was mad about it at the time as I thought working on rifles and machine guns would be pretty cool.
It turns out, I really enjoyed the Machinist course and was pretty good at it.
The rest is history. Next year I will have been in this trade 50 years

[Leehound]

@Leehound : Do I remember correctly that you used to make a bunch of tooling for a client who does investment casting? (Or maybe it was somebody else....I thought it was here on MCF).

FYI, the "lugs" on that bike I linked to were investment cast; I *think* the mfr of those was a Japanese co named Tange.

I used to build Investment Casting Molds (34 years) before I sold everything a few years back. My customers were Foundries. Never did any parts for motorcycles, mainly aerospace. I still do Solid Modeling for one foundry, which provides me with a nice income while I am semi-retired.

[Elmer Fudd]

I built investment casting molds for 15 years. Interesting work and only cut aluminum. Was my favorite job.

[TSmcam]

Its been good sitting back and watching this thread grow

I should have added my experience and how I got started.

As school kid, I visited one of the largest engineering shops in town. Got shown around by the Apprentice trainer. At the end of the visit, he asked me with everything I have seen, what interests me. I said, the CNC Machines.

I started my apprenticeship the next year. The company did varied work, a lot of heavy engineering, hydraulic pumps, and as a sideline, manufactured waterjet propulsion units for jet boats. Worked my through the apprenticeship, and in my last six months, went onto the CNC lathes. Learnt to manually programme Okuma OSP2200L controls, doing trig and typing out paper tape.
Worked my way through progressive machines, and then we got Mastercam. Did a couple of college courses, self taught myself post processor editing, and ended up being asked to teach programming and Mastercam at the local college in the evenings. Around that time, the local Mastercam reseller realised I could be of help, did a shady deal (that I didn't realise at the time) to get me a license, so I did some contract programming, and did post processor and tech support for him.
Ended up leaving the company I did my apprenticeship with, and went to work for Sandvik Coromant as a technical rep (continuing to do Mastercam support work and training). Left Sandvik after two years, and went to work with a good friend from the first company I worked for, with view to being part of the business. Worst mistake of my life. All turned sour, so baled, and went to work for one of my contract programming customers. While there, the company that I did my apprenticeship with, asked if I would be interested in coming back as a contractor to optimise some of their programming. They had grown considerably, got a bunch of big mill turns and HMCs, and now solely did waterjets. So, ended up back there, and within about four months they offered me a role as senior programmer, than morphed into Programming Supervisor. Programmed wax investment dies, and did prototyping. Also helped manage a Toyoda FMS. While there, I got to travel CNC Software in Tolland (met the Summers, Steve Bertrand, Gene Welti, Mike Rosa, along with other people at the reseller training afterwards, like JParis and Mike Mattera), and also went to Sandvik Coromant in Fair Lawn NJ.
I was back there at my old company for about seven years, until I got tired of an inept manager who held me back. One of my bigger contract programming customers offered me a role, so I took it, which is where I am now.

So, now I programme those Okumas, do design work, and tech stuff. And then the TopSolid, Vericut and Cimco stuff

[Brian]

That's how I became a machinist/programmer. Random events I had no control or influence over.

I'm curious to hear when you first realized that you were going to be a "lifer"-that this was going to be your lifelong career. Did you have that realization early on, or did it take a while?

[Brian]

I used to build Investment Casting Molds (34 years) before I sold everything a few years back. My customers were Foundries.

OK- I thought I remembered something like that! Would you design and then build the molds, or did the customers supply the mold design ready to go?

[Leehound]

OK- I thought I remembered something like that! Would you design and then build the molds, or did the customers supply the mold design ready to go?

As the Moldmaker, I did all the tool design.