[TheForge] Re: Fw: forging contest

[Mike Spencer]

> It reminds me of machinist training with a German company I use to
> work with.  Young appreciates were given a rough cut piece of hot
> roll steel and required to file a cube to high precision.  The only
> tools allow were a vise, file and try-square.

When I applied for a millwright position at the local Michelin plant,
I was given a similar test. Blueprint, file, hacksaw, center punch,
try-square, hammer, drill press, tap, go-nogo gauge, vise and a piece
of steel.  Make it like the blueprint to specified tolerances (which
varied from facet to facet of the finished piece.)

I did fine, got the job and was utterly, totally outaged when they
issued me my tools.  No roller cabinet, just a wooden crate with a
hasp and padlock. And the tools were a horrible mixed bag of cheap
crap, some French and some not.  No ratchet & socket wrenches.
Instead, they issued things that looked like fat allen wrenches but
were hollow so's to fit metric nuts and bolts.  When I had to do
somethig for a few hours perched up on a 15' high machine, I asked for
a toolholster so I wouldn't have to climb up and down for every tool.
I was told, "Only electricians get those" and had to get a special
dispensation from the foreman to have one.

If I'd seen the tool set first, I would have expected the test to
determine if I knew which end of the hacksaw to hold.  Feh.

Needless to say, I quit at the end of the probationary period and went
back to blacksmithing but it nicely fattened up a financialy thin
winter.  And I got to see a lot of allegedly secret technology. 
Many of the "secret" machines are pictured in the 1910 Encyclopedia
Britanica. :-o


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^