bradbyname
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- Joined
- Jun 19, 2011
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Hi guys.
Well i stumbled upon this site while googling for a few answers on centre drills. After seeing just how many engineers there are on here, i thought it would be a good community to jump in to
I am 27, and living in sunny blackpool - UK (land of rain. our saying is "if you can see the tower it means its going to rain. if you cant see it, it's raining")
At 8 years old i picked up a soldering iron and an electronics hobby kit. you know the type. Make an alarm for your bedroom using a not gate and the batteries lasted all of an hour. Burned myself popped more LED's, transistors, and put diodes in back to front more than i care to remember. on a plus side you learn from it
When i left school at 15 i went on to college to do a BTEC diploma in electronic engineering where i was introduced to a lathe and a mill. big thing with a scary chuck key which the lecturer just kept going on about "Use it like an extension of your arm and never leave it in" I thought he was a bit eccentric at the time.
After leaving there I went on to work at a metal shop as a mill & lathe operator, but still carrying on with electronics as a hobby in my own time. After some time and started to get a basic understanding of the machines (bearing in mind real engineers were setting up the machines for me and i was just running them) and the appeal which everyone else on this forum has towards engineering started to rub off on me. I grew wise to the banter in the workshop, and the tricks of going to fetch a long weight (wait) for the mill door from the stores. The three magnets stuck on a mild steel tool box used for identifying aluminium, mild, and stainless.... hmm.
Over time i had a few cuts and scrapes but nothing serious. Had a habit of not wearing my safety glasses though. I think it took about four occasions of metal getting into my eyes before it actually sunk in to wear your glasses. Worst one was blowing a lathe out with an airline after taking fine cuts on aluminium. you guessed it, the air whipped around the splash guard and blew the lot straight back into my face. couldn't see a damn thing with the joy of the foreman flushing my eyes out with eyewash with the MD hurling abuse at me from the distance about not wearing my glasses. Then i left the chuck key in. Luckily i put it in reverse, and as the chuck key hit the chuck guard in its upright position it snapped the square end clean off... with a hell of a bang. From that point i understood why my lecturer kept going on about the chuck key and never done it since. touch wood.
I moved up north and took a change of career in sales and took up computers as a hobby, still carrying on with the electronics. I read copious amount of books on C++ programming and taught myself to program over the space of a few years. Once i felt comfortable with that i began to integrate my electronics background with programming. I made a software/hardware product which i now treat as a family run business which my wife and son help with the manufacture process, and then on to start thinking about making life easier. The problem here, is that i still thought about those machines. i thought that perhaps its just a phase and i will soon forget about them and carry on with life.
Well, they didn't. they still continued to remind me of all of those wonderful things you could make with them. And so began the design and construction of my home workshop. So now i have a nice little collection of machinery, with the ambition of designing and building machines which are fully automated to manufacture my product for me. As i Begin this quest il be sure to post pictures and all the plans for you to have a read through so be sure to watch this space.
If you would like a nosey at my workshop, take a look here:
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=14812.0
sorry for rabbiting on just figured i may as well give you guys a good bit of background in one go as il be sticking round these parts for a good while .. or is it all the caffeine i consumed before typing this. Ah well, Il flip a coin
Speak to you all soon no doubt
Brad
Well i stumbled upon this site while googling for a few answers on centre drills. After seeing just how many engineers there are on here, i thought it would be a good community to jump in to
I am 27, and living in sunny blackpool - UK (land of rain. our saying is "if you can see the tower it means its going to rain. if you cant see it, it's raining")
At 8 years old i picked up a soldering iron and an electronics hobby kit. you know the type. Make an alarm for your bedroom using a not gate and the batteries lasted all of an hour. Burned myself popped more LED's, transistors, and put diodes in back to front more than i care to remember. on a plus side you learn from it
When i left school at 15 i went on to college to do a BTEC diploma in electronic engineering where i was introduced to a lathe and a mill. big thing with a scary chuck key which the lecturer just kept going on about "Use it like an extension of your arm and never leave it in" I thought he was a bit eccentric at the time.
After leaving there I went on to work at a metal shop as a mill & lathe operator, but still carrying on with electronics as a hobby in my own time. After some time and started to get a basic understanding of the machines (bearing in mind real engineers were setting up the machines for me and i was just running them) and the appeal which everyone else on this forum has towards engineering started to rub off on me. I grew wise to the banter in the workshop, and the tricks of going to fetch a long weight (wait) for the mill door from the stores. The three magnets stuck on a mild steel tool box used for identifying aluminium, mild, and stainless.... hmm.
Over time i had a few cuts and scrapes but nothing serious. Had a habit of not wearing my safety glasses though. I think it took about four occasions of metal getting into my eyes before it actually sunk in to wear your glasses. Worst one was blowing a lathe out with an airline after taking fine cuts on aluminium. you guessed it, the air whipped around the splash guard and blew the lot straight back into my face. couldn't see a damn thing with the joy of the foreman flushing my eyes out with eyewash with the MD hurling abuse at me from the distance about not wearing my glasses. Then i left the chuck key in. Luckily i put it in reverse, and as the chuck key hit the chuck guard in its upright position it snapped the square end clean off... with a hell of a bang. From that point i understood why my lecturer kept going on about the chuck key and never done it since. touch wood.
I moved up north and took a change of career in sales and took up computers as a hobby, still carrying on with the electronics. I read copious amount of books on C++ programming and taught myself to program over the space of a few years. Once i felt comfortable with that i began to integrate my electronics background with programming. I made a software/hardware product which i now treat as a family run business which my wife and son help with the manufacture process, and then on to start thinking about making life easier. The problem here, is that i still thought about those machines. i thought that perhaps its just a phase and i will soon forget about them and carry on with life.
Well, they didn't. they still continued to remind me of all of those wonderful things you could make with them. And so began the design and construction of my home workshop. So now i have a nice little collection of machinery, with the ambition of designing and building machines which are fully automated to manufacture my product for me. As i Begin this quest il be sure to post pictures and all the plans for you to have a read through
so be sure to watch this space.If you would like a nosey at my workshop, take a look here:
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=14812.0
sorry for rabbiting on
just figured i may as well give you guys a good bit of background in one go as il be sticking round these parts for a good while .. or is it all the caffeine i consumed before typing this. Ah well, Il flip a coinSpeak to you all soon no doubt
Brad
