Apprentice Piece – Turning

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Not entirely correct Neil. Most offer courses like this

**LINK**

Also this

**LINK**

However in many cases no o levels did mean no job in many toolroom type areas in larger companies and they might still put people through the last link just to make sure. It might mean a job as a setter.

True tooling can be made on a cnc machine but as far as I am aware it often isn't.

John

–

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

My apprentice piece, made longer ago than I care to remember, used all the operations one can perform on a lathe, plus filing and case hardening, This probably took 2 weeks rather than 2 hours.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Ajohnw on 14/10/2016 15:26:40:

Not entirely correct Neil. Most offer courses like this

**LINK**

Also this

**LINK**

Courses exist, but this is the proportion of students taking different types of BTECs::

Plus the non-completion rate has risen to over 40%, the highest for any group of subjects.

Engineering training isn't dying, but it looks poorly with only about 1% of vocational students completing a course each year.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 15/10/2016 10:55:22

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Neil,

Perhaps the 'non-completers' have been visiting this forum; and have seen that 'real engineers' don't bother with studies … they just get in the workshop with a big angle-grinder

MichaelG.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Anthony, snap, I could go out to my workshop and get a tap wrench virtually identical to yours, made when I was a Boy Entrant in the RNZAF in 1964, it's much used, think it took about 4 hrs to make.

Ian S C

[DanielParticipant @daniel]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 15/10/2016 12:28:24:

Neil,

Perhaps the 'non-completers' have been visiting this forum; and have seen that 'real engineers' don't bother with studies … they just get in the workshop with a big angle-grinder

MichaelG.

. . . . and a decent tape measure

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

 

Plus the non-completion rate has risen to over 40%, the highest for any group of subjects.

Engineering training isn't dying, but it looks poorly with only about 1% of vocational students completing a course each year.

Interesting that only 1.8% go into construction yet one can easily make a reasonable wage as a (ie)quantity surveyor – if one took that path-as one can with most of the other jobs. I know students who have done sports studies who are now doing something totally different having sussed how useless it has been & realised that they now have no training for anything useful. Yet we still run these courses

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 16/10/2016 08:33:52

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I would like to make a point here, we had young people come to ask for work having seen the advert. OK, sit down and ask questions, what degree did you get, 'Art', 'Oh', 'why are you applying for a job that requires you to write software to interface with competitors electronic instruments'. I thought I would learn on the job', Sorry! Bye.

Lad comes in and has BTech E, age about 25 or 30, takes one look at an electronic Theodolite in pieces and leaves. We had an apprentice for 3 years, passed his exams with one day a week at Tech. at the end of the 3 years he leaves and works on Southern rail as a Signal tech, his dad got him the job! He could name any footballer, or club and any highlights of football but had a complete lack of interface between hand and brain. I worry about travelling on those trains.

Clive

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Since the training isn't paid for upfront, it's paid for in stages rather than in one go, as most people would rather. But the trouble is the training isn't garaunteed if the apprentice loses their job or gets taken off for whatever reason, most of the time this isn't the doing of the student but rather the company either goes bust or hits financial difficulty and a series of budget constraints are imposed.

So if you're placed in an apprenticeship for 4 or 5 years, the likelihood of that event happening goes from improbable to somewhat. Obviously this risk is only markedly reduced in the far larger firms, but as we know most people are working for a small business. 

So this would go down in the statistics as having being recorded "dropped out" as they rarely ask or seek the reason why you're leaving, so it sounds like they did it because they either misbehaved or of their own choice, but like i just said, it's because they don't have any choice some of the time. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 16/10/2016 11:01:06

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 15/10/2016 10:52:57:

Courses exist, but this is the proportion of students taking different types of BTECs::

What is engineering if it isn't the application of science? IMHO that makes the above look promising. I would have expected useless things like "media studies" to be top.

Russell.

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by Michael Walters on 16/10/2016 10:50:16:

So if you're placed in an apprenticeship for 4 or 5 years, the likelihood of that event happening goes from improbable to somewhat. Obviously this risk is only markedly reduced in the far larger firms, but as we know most people are working for a small business.

Are you sure appreticeships are that long these days? ( I am talking craft level)

I thought the introduction of modules also reduced the length of training required

It also meant that training could be restricted to the work that companies needed, rather than parts that they did not. That meant that trainees , whilst having a narrower range of skills, would still be able to undertake the skills a particular firm required. The modules could always be added to later.

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 16/10/2016 13:37:13

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 16/10/2016 08:41:12:

I would like to make a point here, we had young people come to ask for work having seen the advert. OK, sit down and ask questions, what degree did you get, 'Art', 'Oh', 'why are you applying for a job that requires you to write software to interface with competitors electronic instruments'. I thought I would learn on the job', Sorry! Bye.

Lad comes in and has BTech E, age about 25 or 30, takes one look at an electronic Theodolite in pieces and leaves. We had an apprentice for 3 years, passed his exams with one day a week at Tech. at the end of the 3 years he leaves and works on Southern rail as a Signal tech, his dad got him the job! He could name any footballer, or club and any highlights of football but had a complete lack of interface between hand and brain. I worry about travelling on those trains.

Clive

 

Clive, with the greatest respect, is that a problem with that person, or is it the standards of the signalling company he works for, not having accreditation for certain job requirements and retraining or reassigning where necessary?

Regarding suitability for jobs; The DWP and Job Centre require people to apply for jobs which are not necessarily related to their qualifications or skill-set at the threat of losing their unemployment benefit if they don't comply. It's all to do with reducing unemployment figures for the gov'ts marketing and not necessarily with finding the right jobs for people.

After 14 years at HP I've been looking for suitable work now for the past 4 years (with about a year of illness in between) and I sometimes wonder about the companies I've been invited to attend for interviews. One firm offered a salary at interview, then later that day called me to say they would actually only be paying minimum living wage, as I had already told the Job Centre people I'd found a job I was under immense pressure because I declined the position.

Another asked me what my marital status was (an illegal interview question nowadays, which I knew about but answered anyway that I was unattached, I wasn't too fussed about his question), but the guy then proceeded to give me a lecture on how, being in a relationship or married could be detrimental to being available for work. All the time he was speaking I was thinking he must have just gone through a bad divorce or something, talk about unprofessional. At the same interview they complained that I was early and that I was over-qualified.

I'd better stop there If anyone wants to discuss unemployment further, please PM me or start a new thread. I know I'm just about sick of unemployment and the attitudes of people towards the unemployed as portrayed by the media. Not all unemployed people are benefit scroungers or useless!

My apologies to the OP for going off-topic. I do think that the training being offered by him and the other volunteers can be very beneficial for people wanting to learn.

No hard feelings, just sharing my thoughts.

Ed.

Edited By Ed Duffner on 16/10/2016 14:44:38

[Adrian GilesParticipant @adriangiles39248]

Nicked from another ME.

I am a self-taught model engineer, I didn't have a good teacher, but I was a good student!

Ade

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

My local academy/Technical college offers BTEC level 3 engineering consisting of the following:

Core Units:

• Health & Safety
• Mechanical Principles
• Mathematics for Technicians
• Mechanical Systems
• Engineering Drawing
• Fabrication Processes
• Electrical Technology
• Primary Forming or Engineering Secondary or Finishing Techniques Machining
• Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Seems like a reasonable grounding in skills needed for a home workshop or small jobbing shop. I do know they have lathes and milling machines.

Martin

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

So, has the OP come up with a suitable beginner's training project based perhaps in part on what came to light in this thread? Would be interested to know after all that discussion.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Ed Duffner on 16/10/2016 14:40:11:

Posted by Clive Hartland on 16/10/2016 08:41:12:

…

…

No hard feelings, just sharing my thoughts.

Ed.

Edited By Ed Duffner on 16/10/2016 14:44:38

Good points well made Ed. Everyone I know who has ever been unemployed wanted to work and needed to work. They were all made thoroughly miserable by the experience. Many of us under-rate the role played by luck and opportunity in life. There but for the grace of God go I.

Dave

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

I spent my first year in employment in 1967 under the local engineering training group in a training workshop. Although I was employed as a draughtsman I had to learn by getting my hands dirty, enjoyed every (most) minutes of it. We had to do this for 10 months and 40 hours a week, plus travelling of an hour each way by train. I still have the riveted tool box with most of the pieces in, most entailed using different machines and hand finishing. I doubt you would get 30 sixteen year olds to do that these days, we had one lad drop out because he wanted to go into graphic design and got a job in that. How many of those worked in engineering all their lives, I have no idea, it would be interesting to find out. I have been lucky!!. Four redundancies, taken back once and finally contracting for the final 10 years. Contracting is were you see the lack of engineering skills both in other contractors and in the full time workforce. The amount of knowledge I have passed on over these last few years is ridiculous. Do others feel the same, as you get older you have to impart more to not only the young but also the not so young who didn't benefit by the apprentice schemes

A simple turning piece, as previous a centre punch or scriber, just make sure they know how to remove the chuck key and where the brake is.

[mark smith 20Participant @marksmith20]

I`d just like to share this apprentice tool kit made by my uncle age 17 in around 1960. It won first prize at Calder Hall Nuclear plant which at the time was UKAEA. My grandmother had these tools in a display cabinet until she died. I have them now.

I never met my uncle as he died several months after this aged 17 in a tragic rugby accident. When i was a child i was always fascinated by the tools and used to sneak into the cabinet to play with them.

 

Edited By mark smith 20 on 17/11/2016 14:52:06

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Truly impressive kit mark, it's a shame you or we didn't get to meet him. He would've been a boon to this community.

Michael W

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Very nice tool-kit Mark. Excuse my ignorance, but what are the four daleks in the middle?

Ta,

Dave

[Antony PriceParticipant @antonyprice56876]

Four daleks in the middle?>> They look like milling machine jacks .. Used for levelling and steadying metal stock when cutting, particularly useful if metal stock overhangs machine vise

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

The daleks are called toolmakers jacks or engineers ditto. The top bit is held in a thread so the height can be adjusted, and they are used to support odd-shaped workpieces when machining (etc).

Very useful if you work on castings (etc) which can start off with no flat surface in sight.

Cheers, Tim

PS another candidate for the Glossary.

Edited By Tim Stevens on 17/11/2016 17:40:33

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Miniature Jacks! What a good idea. Thanks Tim and Antony.

Cheers,

Dave

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Mark,

Your photograph brings back memories, in the late 70's my brother and I both got apprenticeships, me first followed by my brother the next year, we made a very similar selection of tools including a pair of v blocks and clamps, ground parallel bar which I still use today for checking my lathe.

We were taught the use of hand tools for the first three months before we were allowed to touch a machine let alone use one, with the exception of a pillar drill.

Our apprenticeships were for four years and each year had a maximum of ten of us, millwrights, machine tool fitters and technical apprentices. We spent one day and evening at technical college for five years.

Martin P

[mark smith 20Participant @marksmith20]

HI ,i think the question has been answered by a few concerning the daleks, which is what we used to call them as kids.

I served a sheet metal apprenticeship at the same place , then BNFL Sellafield, i think there was around 150 of us taken on at the time and this was every year under about 6-7 different trades. Then later in the 1990`s they stopped the whole thing i believe but are recently taking on significant numbers of youngsters under the Gen II programme. It was a great time we even had a gym instructor who was ex navy who used to put us though hell once a week.

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