curiosity

[vanrah]

Good morning Guys; ssn696 is giving good advice, but it's no guarantee of a job. My education was drafting, auto engines & machine tool in that order. And I found myself out of work at 58 when IBM CadAm died, a French company Dassault Systèmes purchased it and renamed it CC Draft (Catia). Some of these programs are very regional. You can't go wrong with Solid Works or Pro-E if industries in your area are using it. Even with many years experience and a week of training ($1500) I was unable to make the jump to Solid Works. Age, declining market, no collage degree, industrial recession (location)? Don't waste your time with Auto Crud the pay ranges are just above pick'in fruit, but every little company has it. If I had life (work) ahead I would look into the medical field like an EMT, EMS or what ever, they rarely get laid off and make a very nice income. Best of luck Bob Jr.

 

[joesregalproject]

My high school has a really large tech ed program and they teach a class on machining which I took. They taught us how to operate and set up engine lathes, turret lathes, production lathes, we did some sheet metal work, and we did foundry work and some old-school black smithing. We made candle holders, knurled handles for toolboxes, chisels and centerpunches, mini cannon barrels, and some other little trinket sh*t. I had a great instructor who is a machinist and a fellow car guy, and he really liked and knew what he was teaching. He used to say "You can make a lathe with a lathe." I can post pictures of some of the stuff we made if anyone is interested in seeing it.

 

[86 Grand prix]

Consider learning a CAD software package like Solidworks or Pro-Engineer. People who can design something using solid models, create drawings, or better - program 3-D raid prototypes - will have a future in more than just the automotive field. You can often buy a student version for a few hundred dollars (vice several thousand for a basic seat of Solidworks) and run through all the tutorials right at home. Most students learning these software packages have no idea how to actually make something (inside square corner, anyone?)

Hope this may be useful information.

ssn696

Definitely go with some kind of 3D program. I work for a major rescue truck manufacturer and started with cad and used it for years but last year I had to break down and learn Pro-Engineer or actually Creo Parametric 2.0. Everything is going that way. Cad is almost a thing of the past. Funny thing is I fought it for several years but after the huge learning curve it is easier. In my experience It helps if you know the parts that you are making and you need to be able to visualize how you would actually make each part and assembly as you design.

I am also a wanna be machinist. I have a 13/25 lathe with digital readouts and a small mill. I got started because I love old hit&miss engines and you have to make a lot of the parts. I love to make intake and exhaust valves.

 

[81cutlass]

Im going to school for Manufacturing Engineering and am working at being a competent manual machinist mostly just for my own use. Manufacturing engineering is less design of products and more design of process to build stuff. Depending on where you go, mechanical is a bit more sit at a computer and just draw stuff. Thing is the first half of the degree is the same so in the end Manufacturing can design stuff and Mechanical can build stuff. Just who's better/more efficient at what. Both need to know how to sit on ProE and design stuff. Mechanical end up knowing heat flow and vibrations stuff, manufacturing are better at choosing tooling, CNC tooling paths, jigs, stuff like that. Mechanical is a large, broad field. A lot of colleges dont have manufacturing, kinda a smaller sub field that is slowly becoming more important since manual machinists are slowly turning into parts changers and button pushers.

Theres a few professional machinists that went back to school in the manufacturing program. However engineering isn't the easiest thing in the world. Calc 2, dynamics, mechanics of materials are pretty tough.

I learned Pro E as a Junior in HS after manual drafting as a freshman if I remember right. In a junior in college now and i've taken my college pro E class which was super easy since I went in with prior knowledge. If anything, learn how to dimension clearly and consistently. A lot of people going through college cant. Dont dimension to rounds, use datums, ect.

 

[86 Grand prix]

I learned Pro E as a Junior in HS after manual drafting as a freshman if I remember right. In a junior in college now and i've taken my college pro E class which was super easy since I went in with prior knowledge. If anything, learn how to dimension clearly and consistently. A lot of people going through college cant. Dont dimension to rounds, use datums, ect.

That was a hard part of my learning curve. I had always drawn to scale in CAD then in Creo you just throw up a sketch and then modify the dimensions to make it right.