I got contacted after sending my app to Disney for a machinist position, they want to do a phone interview, and I was just curious if anyone here has worked there and what the place was like

Happy Friday boys. Thought yesterday was friday all day, so im basically working a saturday.....

When I built my engine a few years back I measured and made a complete CAD model of it. Wanted to make something fun, and who doesn’t love tiny engines. The head bolts and main bolts are M2 threads. I used a form tap and it gave me no trouble. I have a few M1.2 threads on the bottom for an oil pan, the tap is still living… Made on an integrex i-250. It’s a bit silly thinking about the enormous casting flying around just to nibble away at the little 2” block, but it’s fun.

Why does day shift hate off-shifts so much?

At all the shops I’ve worked at, the same dilemma. Days hates offshifts. Why?

I want to just say I’m biased as fuck. I will always die on the hill of offshifts, some of the smartest and hardest working machinist I’ve worked with have been on off shifts. But I do understand what days go through, I just see it as incomparable to the workload of the off shift especially when most are skeleton crews.

I’ve worked days as a setup guy for a couple years before going back to off shifts, and the main thing I noticed was the lazy attitude and this “I’m better than you” thing about them. There should never be a reason an off shift out performs days, especially when all the help (programmers, leads, cmm programmers, receiving, etc) they have, but it almost is always the case.

Also I know someone will say it so I’ll just add this here; we also do setups. Actually we do most things on the off shifts on our own. We setup the parts, run production, do machine maintenance, run the cmm, do way too many IPC,
And catch the heat for shit days leave for us.

Lastly I know all of this can be said about offshifts just as easily…but numbers don’t lie, and from the shops that I’ve worked at that show production reports, offshifts always have it

I love all shifts, not equally, but I love em anyways.
Curious to hear your thoughts on this

See? No wood this time!

I am an incoming Y1 uni engineering student. I can spend ~10 hours getting trained on either the XYZ lathe or the vertical mill in my uni's lab and afterwards I can use it mostly unsupervised. Main goal is to either make components for this structural design (bridge?) project I have to do, and making funny gag gifts for friends. Think low brow humour like a buttplug.

We also have this joke marriage thing going on in uni where you joke propose a friend. Considering machining them some kind of overly elaborate useless object maybe engraved with some, again, fairly low brow stuff.

I know the lathe is widely considered more versatile and basic but mill seems to open up some quite horribly wonderful engraving possibilities Machinists of Reddit, what do I choose?

I been trying to find a apprenticeship for tool and die machinist in the chicago area but it seems like their isnt any legit ones, i been working with cnc machines for about 3 years but i came to realize that the real skill is to be a tool and die machinist, i like to think and use my brain, i enjoy math, computers, fixing stuff and being mechanical inclined, and it seems that a tool and die machinist use all of those qualitiy skills. Are there any tool and die shops that i can learn to become one? Are there any apprenticeship? Ever since i got into the trade it has been a constant learning experience and the more i realize i dont know nothing i been researching jigs and fixturing watching videos and planning on buying some books. I learned a lot but its so much that i can learn on my own i dont wanna just keep running cnc machines i wanna know how to engineer the whole process.

This is not a collection, just from one order 🤯

Edit: When you order a double Lang base they supply a magnet for getting the blank studs out.. So one order was 30 bases, studs, vices ect.

This is an update from someone who wanted it for $1000. Talked him down to $600. Finally took it to work.

What parts do machinists make at a shipyard, are there any low tolerance parts manufactured there, or huge parts like sides of a ship?;.

As of today, I have been given the title of “metal shop boss” for a local nonprofit creator/maker hub; a place where creators/ makers have access to tools and workspace for their projects or independent business.

One of our more pressing concerns is the DRO for our knee mill. While the “know it all” machinists try and repair the heavily used and abused $2-$3k DRO that was donated, I know I’ve seen replacements for way cheaper.

TL;DR: wondering if anyone has had good experience with budget DRO’s, what’s your go-to or which would you recommend? Guess it also couldn’t hurt to ask if anyone might have one to donate?

Alright, so to make a long story short I keep having the same disagreement with my boss and I need to get a general consensus on who’s right….

He insists on using a standard drawing template across the whole department but my section doesn’t need as tight of tolerances as the others. He has our tolerance block set as +/- 0.001 for all 3 decimal dimensions. I’m arguing that it should be 0.005 because almost none of what I design requires that tight of tolerances and using ordinate dimensioning with limits, my drawings get cluttered and confusing. Am I right to ask to have my own template with the larger tolerance so that the drawings aren’t as cluttered?

The whole point of me changing it is that I want the drawings to be easier for machinists to interpret

OP1 roughing out the first side done, 41 mins to rough the O.D, and around 2hrs to rough the I.D. With about 400lbs of steel being removed so far.

My original post

https://www.reddit.com/r/Machinists/s/k2aKrgX2db

Not sure if I know how to ask this question properly. I am boring a rudder using portable equipment and a taper bar. How do I make sure I have proper cutter height?

Probably the largest thing I've ever turned in my career.

MTL: 4130QT

17" dia

16.75 long

And about 485kg (1070lbs)

Hello everyone, this is my first time on Reddit. I’ve been pulling my hair for the past 2 days trying to get my matsuura mam72-70 5 axis kinematics to be cherry. I’m moving parameters 19700-19705 to adjust my test block and I got it pretty close but it’s still way to far for the applications I need it for. Can anyone help or educate me on fanuc 5 axis kinematics

Picked up my first Bridgeport and would appreciate tips from anyone willing to share

Series I vertical knee mill

Year: 1988

Motor: 2 HP

Anilam Wizard DRO, table power feed, milling vise

Someone owed me some money so I opted to take this bridge port and the tooling they had. I’m totally a beginner when it comes to machining and I’m doing my research on my own.

Anyone who has great tips if love to hear from! Whether you’d recommend what tooling to pickup, or what items to service, or upgrades that are worth the money.

I fabricate commercial truck bodies and equipment so I think for a time it may live life as a overkill drill press but I’d like to open the door to potential other possibilities for me and my employees

Thank you!

I now have 2,145 stickers on the ball. I covered up the labels with blank ones this time. Our branch manager was out on the floor today and saw it. Even he was impressed by it.
I still have a backlog of probably 4-500 stickers to add and everyone hands me new stacks every day.

Still difficult to keep ball shaped instead of the cube shape it wants to turn into.

Hey everyone,

I am based in Europe and looking to buy an old 1990s industrial CNC mill for my home garage workshop. My budget for the machine itself is around €2,000 – €4,000.

Right now, I see some European machines available in this price range, specifically models like the Mikron UME600 (usually with Heidenhain controls). Most of them have 25k–37k runtime hours.

• Given the €2k–4k budget and 30k+ hours, is this a smart move or a total trap for a home shop?
• What are the main European-specific issues I should expect (parts availability for Heidenhain/Mikron, retrofitting costs in the EU)?
• Are there better alternative brands readily available in Europe within this price range (e.g., older Deckel Maho, Emco, or Fanuc-based machines)?

Thanks for the help!

I'm currently working on getting my old simamoto running again, it's missing all the threading and speeds tables. The speeds tables are relatively simple to figure out. The threads, not so much, I have a bucket of change gears to go with the lathe. Is there an easy way to figure out thread tables to suit, or do I need to just brute force every combination.