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If minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would be at least $10 an hour. If it had kept pace with wealth growth at the top, it would be around $18.00 an hour. That's what an American **should** get paid for entry level work. I would consider the type of work you describe to be like a more physical version of IT work. Technical and computer savvy needed, the ability to use CAD software, along with the ability to run and maintain a complicated machine. Plus you'll be getting messy. If you compare what workers like that are getting paid in MA these days... well, those employers are offering a lot more than 12 an hour.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:01
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Pagan posted:If minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would be at least $10 an hour. If it had kept pace with wealth growth at the top, it would be around $18.00 an hour. That's what an American **should** get paid for entry level work. Someone who knew how to do that stuff already would be getting paid 18+. Someone coming in with no experience it's not going to happen. I'm not saying it doesn't suck but the whole manufacturing sector is pretty hosed up.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:06
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Blacksmithing / Metalwork: Fire + Metal + Sweat = No Living Wage
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Mar 20, 2015 21:34
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I'm a trained machinist with loads of experience under my belt, not waterjet, but cnc programming and cad work galore. I have a degree in engineering tech and I wouldn't consider that job for less than 50k a year with 40hrs a week and benefits. Just to give you the perspective of someone well qualified for the job. E: I also live in western mass so I know about cost of living here.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:11
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Rime posted:So I came across the remains of what was a very rich gold mine a while back, and they basically just walked away back in the 70's and left the mills full of ground flour. It's hardened to a clay like substance now and is probably laced with sodium cyanide (I'm not sure at what stage that got added to the suspension in tech this old), but is it conceivable to smelt gold out of it? We're talking several hundred tons just laying there out in the wilderness, but the chinese are going to be building nearby soon and I'm afraid they're going to dynamite what's left of the mill compound... Not really, depends on how good you are with chemistry though. You're probably better off better off trying gravity based separation (panning or sluicing most likely) to check for free gold. Be very careful of the loving cyanide. I doubt it was added at the milling stage though. Any clay you'll have to break up as it carries gold out of you're appliances quite well otherwise, the simplest method is puddling. add washing detergent and water to a tub, mix your gravel in a shovel full at a time, stir and batter the everliving gently caress out of it until you've got gravel at the bottom and clayey sludge on top, add more water and repeat until the water comes up mostly clear. Then pan the gravel. You'd probably have better luck if you can find the uncrushed material though. Flour gold is a prick of a thing at the best of times. If you do this then find some mesh and screen down to a 1/4 inch. Are you sure that they were leaching? It's not really common unless they're working with sulphides or microscopic free gold. Have a poke around and see if you can find something that looks like a big piece of guttering with bars across the bottom of it. these: https://www.google.com/search?q=sluice&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VY8MVeW4EpXi8AXXnICwCg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1440&bih=813 basically but massive. A sluice is you're basic gravity recovery device for free gold where water of any sort is available. If it proves good then build one of your own and start running material.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:26
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Random Number posted:I'm a trained machinist with loads of experience under my belt, not waterjet, but cnc programming and cad work galore. I have a degree in engineering tech and I wouldn't consider that job for less than 50k a year with 40hrs a week and benefits. Yea, sounds about right, pretty much in line with what I said earlier. But someone coming in with little to no experience or training? Ehhhh
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Mar 20, 2015 22:36
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Well, I don't set the wages, I just work here. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the thing is anyone who's applied has never walked away because of money. As far as I know he doesn't advertise the starting wages in any ads he places. Is it going to improve quickly enough to make a decent living? Call it three months until a wage that isn't lovely, and only barely above living wage. If no, then long term doesn't matter, because short term you're getting hosed. If long term to make a decent living(so a bit above living wage) is measured in years, then it may as well be a dead end job, because you're gonna be paying the debts from the shut wage for a looong while
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Mar 20, 2015 22:39
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bend posted:Be very careful of the loving cyanide. Blacksmithing/Metalwork:
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Mar 20, 2015 22:40
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The mold shops in west mass pay kids from vocational schools like $18 an hour starting wage.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:41
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Yeah, it was a multi-level gravity crusher with concentrating operations at the bottom. We found a shed someone built out in the woods using the Sodium Cyanide boxes...  : The flour is in the bottom of these two flying saucer things:  I mean, there's raw ore in the crusher chutes and probably end-of-production stuff in the ball mills, the flour just seemed like the easiest since you can scoop it up by the bucket.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:44
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MohawkSatan posted:Is it going to improve quickly enough to make a decent living? Call it three months until a wage that isn't lovely, and only barely above living wage. If no, then long term doesn't matter, because short term you're getting hosed. Well I honestly don't know what to say then. How much should an entry level person, essentially an apprentice with no experience, no training, and a big risk on our part putting in the time and investment in training, make? When I first started working there, i had gotten 3 more dollars an hour in the first year, because I worked my rear end off. Most of these entry level people are in their late teens and early twenties, still living with their parents, their cost of living is generally not that high. Older people who would apply generally already have experience and would be making more. Edit: if we could get a good voc kid in, he would be making more, because he knows what he's doing. Also, water jet isn't nearly as challenging or require as much proficiency as toolmaking. A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 22:52
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Most apprentices around here start at 60% of journeyman pay, going up 5% every 6 months. You can get away with lower starting pay if you have a fixed schedule of raises. Realistically though, if someone doesn't work out after 6 months, the difference of having started them at $12/hr or $16/hr isn't all that much. For risking an extra $5000 you're greatly expanding your pool of applicants. When I first started interviewing I was 28, had a year of trade school, a decade of experience in other manufacturing, already knew GD&T, great at math, and had a list of references from teachers and employers along the lines of "best student/employee ever" and "scary fast learner." I had one shop tell me it would be six months sweeping floors at minimum wage before they would even consider me as an apprentice. In the same interview he complained that everyone applying was a complete loser. At a different place the shop foreman stopped during our walk through so he could go literally scream at an employee because he spilled coolant on the floor. My current employer was my last shot at an interview before I gave up on machining completely.
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Mar 21, 2015 00:45
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Well I honestly don't know what to say then. How much should an entry level person, essentially an apprentice with no experience, no training, and a big risk on our part putting in the time and investment in training, make? To give you some perspective, I live in bumfuck North Carolina. I graduated with a A.A.S degree in December. I just got a job making $26/hr, in an industry I've never worked in before and the only experience I have is what I gained in a classroom. (Caveat: It's a temporary position with a fixed contract, but the rate of pay is the baseline for no experience, 2 year associates degree, and can lead to longer term employment on a contract by contract basis.) Also we have 3 community colleges in a 75 mile radius that all have and teach water-jet as part of their computer integrated machining programs. (Sadly, not mine but we did get to go to a near-by school and spend a day learning the operation of one and how it isn't fundamentally different than a CNC mill or plasma cutter. Seeing a tiny gear cut to .005 +-.00001 was amazing.) Also the inability to read a blueprint is baffling to me. The first time I ever saw one I could figure out everything but some of the symbols (like couter-bore and counter-sink) I think there's enough of a derail on how lovely wages are in -------- Rime that is seriously cool as poo poo. None of the mines out here still have stuff like that intact outside. It's all been scrapped or carted off or rusted into nothingness. Oxbrain: That sucks about interviewing like that. We've at least got enough manufacturing out here that you can land a job once you get out of school doing the work you actually went to school in the first place. There's enough turn over from people finding out how soul-crushing a production based job actually is to keep the colleges in business at least.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:43
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Rime posted:Yeah, it was a multi-level gravity crusher with concentrating operations at the bottom. Alright then, you're flying saucer things look like the bottom of leach towers to me, might be wrong though. generally a leach operation takes place after crushing as far as I know, the process is usually crush and mill to release particle gold and then leach and use a process to recover gold from the pregnant solution. more here http://webpages.charter.net/kwilliams00/bcftp/bcftp.htm . I'd be inclined to test the material in the feed chutes or the crushers before playing with cyanide and so on. generally you need to be able to process bulk amounts of material to make leach processes economicallly viable, but the crushed material especially probably contains free gold recoverable via simpler methods , and you can always try cherrypicking and crushing raw ore yourself if that turns out well. Obviously this advice is based on the gold not being locked up in sulfides, tellurides and so on. Personally I'd start by cleaning out the ball mills and the crushers before i tried loving around with half finished leaching processes, Maybe run the detector over any waste ore, low grade could mean up to ten or twenty ounce of free gold to the tonne in the seventies, as gold prices were lower.
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Mar 21, 2015 08:27
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Kasan posted:To give you some perspective, I live in bumfuck North Carolina. I graduated with a A.A.S degree in December. I just got a job making $26/hr, in an industry I've never worked in before and the only experience I have is what I gained in a classroom. (Caveat: It's a temporary position with a fixed contract, but the rate of pay is the baseline for no experience, 2 year associates degree, and can lead to longer term employment on a contract by contract basis.) Jesus, where? I'm just over the state line to the south and just finished an apprenticeship (which also granted an A.A.S Machine Tool Setup) in such baller fashion that my tech school brought me back to teach the CAD class and my prime employer is only tossing me $14.95/hr base on 7-day. I'm getting hosed.
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Mar 21, 2015 11:02
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bend posted:Alright then, you're flying saucer things look like the bottom of leach towers to me, might be wrong though. generally a leach operation takes place after crushing as far as I know, the process is usually crush and mill to release particle gold and then leach and use a process to recover gold from the pregnant solution. more here http://webpages.charter.net/kwilliams00/bcftp/bcftp.htm . I'd be inclined to test the material in the feed chutes or the crushers before playing with cyanide and so on. generally you need to be able to process bulk amounts of material to make leach processes economicallly viable, but the crushed material especially probably contains free gold recoverable via simpler methods , and you can always try cherrypicking and crushing raw ore yourself if that turns out well. Obviously this advice is based on the gold not being locked up in sulfides, tellurides and so on. Sweet, I'll have to give this some research before I head up there again! This place was running from the 1800's, so it's sitting on a mountain of waste material. Historically they were pulling out 0.60 ounces per ton or higher right up till 1970, at which point they just turned everything off and walked away.  Kasan posted:Rime that is seriously cool as poo poo. None of the mines out here still have stuff like that intact outside. It's all been scrapped or carted off or rusted into nothingness. BC has more abandoned mining camps than it has living towns, and up until the millennium no enforced site reclamation laws. This place was huge, and is extremely remote so only the weather has done it in. I've spent nearly a week up there over the past two years and still not located all the remains. Another ten years and it will be gone, though, it's collapsing quite rapidly now.    /EndofGoldDerail.
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Mar 21, 2015 16:27
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I realize there's a CNC thread, but it's not well trafficked and I hope someone can offer a couple pointers. I'm trying to make a branding iron and I'm not exactly sure of my cutting tool width. In the setup of this gcode, I thought my cutting tool was 2mm but there are lines around every pass so I think it's actually like 1.9mm or even 1.8mm, but I'm not sure why it "crashes" into the letters. The machine I'm using is a cobbled together POS but it looks like I'm pretty close. The material is homemade machinable wax. (click for big) 
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Mar 21, 2015 23:53
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Machine a couple of passes with your tool width set to different values until you get it correct? If you have a vernier caliper it might be possible to accurately measure your tool width as well.
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Mar 21, 2015 23:56
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What are you using to generate the gcode? Is it compensating for the tool diameter in the software or are you using an offset on the controller? How much stepover do you have programmed in? You'll get much smoother lines if you run it as a pocket instead of a z-axis profile.
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Mar 22, 2015 00:16
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Cakefool posted:Machine a couple of passes with your tool width set to different values until you get it correct? If you have a vernier caliper it might be possible to accurately measure your tool width as well. Well, I was going to do that but then the tool I was using to generate my gcode is being fucky. Thanks for the ideas, I'll do that once I sort it out. oxbrain posted:What are you using to generate the gcode? Is it compensating for the tool diameter in the software or are you using an offset on the controller? How much stepover do you have programmed in? I was using Inkscape and the bundled extension gcodetools. I don't think it gives me the option to do stepover values. (Thanks for the magic word though, I just found: http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCMillFeedsSpeedsStepover.htm and that really clarifies things.) I can't afford the money and time investment into mastercam or the like, any suggestions on something better (free or cheap)?
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Mar 22, 2015 01:29
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Can you have it leave some stock allowance on the letters and then do a contouring finish pass? You could do the stock allowance manually by offsetting from the shape and doing the roughing path to that. That should take care of the gouging in the letters. Also, you definitely don't want to stepover the full width of the tool, 50% max would be my recommendation most of the time. CAM software is sadly very expensive for even moderately powerful programs. Try some of the stuff here: http://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-software/free-cam-software.html. I haven't used any of it, but it sounds like it'd do what you need. CamBam, for example, can import DXFs.
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Mar 22, 2015 01:50
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CamBam is probably your best bet. The free version will make small programs, and there is a ton of help for first timers on various forums. e: Send me the drawing.
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Mar 22, 2015 02:00
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oxbrain posted:e: Send me the drawing. I have mastercam and Gibbscam. If need be I can generate you some code. I have Solidworks too, but I'm still learning it. Fake edit: Mastercam x3. It'll work, but it isn't the most current version.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:50
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oxbrain posted:CamBam is probably your best bet. The free version will make small programs, and there is a ton of help for first timers on various forums. Kasan posted:I have mastercam and Gibbscam. If need be I can generate you some code. I have Solidworks too, but I'm still learning it. Thanks to the both of you. I actually also took the suggestion of trying out CAMBAM, I've been playing with that and actually getting better results. It's not perfect, but I am definitely dialing it in much better than I thought I could. For the price, I think I can actually swing it, but the more than generous 40 launches are actually getting me by. My biggest limitation right now is how crummy my homemade machinists wax is. It's very brittle and chips at machining small details. My plan was to use the wax to make a burnout mold for brass (or bronze) and use that for the branding end. But given how crummy the wax is I may have to give up that idea and try something like foam board.
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Mar 24, 2015 00:13
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Have you tried wood? Also don't fault the wax outright. Looking at your picture and the striations on the wax, I'd look at your bit and the actual CNC device. Even wax should be pretty smooth and even.
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Mar 24, 2015 02:48
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Kasan posted:Have you tried wood? Also don't fault the wax outright. Looking at your picture and the striations on the wax, I'd look at your bit and the actual CNC device. Even wax should be pretty smooth and even. Also good ideas, I'll try that today. Anyone know of a good source for scrap brass?
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Mar 24, 2015 12:45
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I have the student version of X8, but it's freaking out when I switch it to metric mode. I think my default machine definitions are wrong.
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Mar 24, 2015 15:28
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oxbrain posted:I have the student version of X8, but it's freaking out when I switch it to metric mode. I think my default machine definitions are wrong. Are you using default or default-m for the machine defs? Switching to metric in the software options, doesn't swap the actual default machine to use metric as well, so you have to make sure your using the files marked with an M at the end.
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Mar 24, 2015 19:38
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I'm using mill default MM. The toolpaths aren't recognizing material properly. It's leaving big sections untouched while pocketing. Dynamic mill works as normal. Although I had the stepover too low. 
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Mar 24, 2015 23:10
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let's do some steel repousse, he said, let's make it stupid big, he said. let's do it In goddamn 1/8" plate, he said. sure. sure. whatever, sounds good, and easy  (it's comin along- most of it I've done with an edging stAke of sorts, and it sped things up enormously. having to heat the working area slows things down a lot but the selective ductility is nice. Ive given up on flattening the base plate and am gonna roll with it's gnarliness and will just weld it to a heavy base-plate and stand it upright, I like the sense of movement the warped plate gives. also my dude needs to get up on leg day, good god)
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Mar 25, 2015 22:57
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Hello thread. First time I'm posting here (wood is more my medium) but I'm hoping you can clue me in. Really it's more of a sanity check of what I've seen online, so please forgive the newbie question. Say I have a sheet of perforated steel (22 gauge or thinner) that I would like to turn into a cylinder, something like:  From what I can tell, roll forming is the only way to do this, and the resulting seam has to be welded to close the cylinder. Does that sound right?
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Mar 26, 2015 03:29
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Trabant posted:Hello thread. First time I'm posting here (wood is more my medium) but I'm hoping you can clue me in. Really it's more of a sanity check of what I've seen online, so please forgive the newbie question. Depending on the size and thickness of the sheet, you could skip the roll forming and just bend it by hand into a tube, clamp it together, and then weld it. That'll work fine assuming that you're in the elastic range of the metal (ie, not permanently bending it.) But if that's out of the question (diameter too small or sheet too thick), then yes, roll forming and welding would be best.
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Mar 26, 2015 03:49
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So I decided to buy a TIG. Picked up a Miller Diversion 180 AC/DC unit with the dual input voltage. The dual voltage is what sold me, since I don't have any 240VAC in my shop, nor am I able to run any. Decided the first project should be a cart. I was reasonably happy with how it turned out, considering I only had about an hour of practice.  
Sgt Fox fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Mar 26, 2015 |
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Mar 26, 2015 04:04
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Trabant posted:has to be welded to close the cylinder You're talking about some pretty thin sheet (I think, what the gently caress kind of unit is gauge). Which will be tricky to weld for a newbie (or even some welders I know who just don't deal with thin stuff). Brazing is another option for steel, and can be done with nought but a hardware shop MAPP torch and some pre-fluxed rods. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Mar 26, 2015 |
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Mar 26, 2015 09:45
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Trabant posted:Hello thread. First time I'm posting here (wood is more my medium) but I'm hoping you can clue me in. Really it's more of a sanity check of what I've seen online, so please forgive the newbie question. The lazy option is just to tie that fucker closed with music wire.
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Mar 26, 2015 12:54
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Hmm, good shout. Maybe even riveting if you have round perforations of the right sort of size.
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Mar 26, 2015 14:19
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Thank you all for the wisdom. Given that I'd like a fairly well-finished final product (and that soldering electronics is the closest I've ever gotten to welding), I'm most likely going to leave it to professionals. That means going with either a finished product (seems like many industrial suppliers offer them) or seeing whether any metal shops in town will do the rolling/welding for me. Since I'd like the perforations to be of my own design, the latter is more attractive... I just have no clue whether the cost of shaping by a shop would be cost-prohibitive. Looks like I'll need to make some calls.
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Mar 26, 2015 19:40
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I'm tired of working on this thing so I declare it done just need to put together a base for it tomorrow
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Mar 26, 2015 23:03
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Trabant posted:Thank you all for the wisdom. Given that I'd like a fairly well-finished final product (and that soldering electronics is the closest I've ever gotten to welding), I'm most likely going to leave it to professionals. You probably should have opened your statement with "I'm going to take a piece of 22 gauge sheet metal and put holes in it, how do I make it into a tube", since linking standard perforated sheeting isn't nearly the same thing. At 22 gauge you're talking less than a MM in thickness. You can roll the sheet and on the seem you can fold it into itself and have a perfect, watertight. airtight joint. Further, it's thin enough you can solder the piece with conventional soldering equipment so long as you have acid free solder and and a non-acid based flux you can brush on. If you were feeling froggy, you could make your own solder paste and re-flow it closed if it'll fit in an oven or if you have a hand held propane torch. I promise we don't bite and your ideas are worth sharing in enough detail we can answer your questions. From the sounds of it, you're making custom designed lighting meant to cast specific patterns or silhouettes?
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Mar 27, 2015 03:45
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You're right, I didn't really give a specific enough description of what I'm thinking about. That's mostly because the project is purely theoretical at this point -- I don't even have the design yet. But yes, the cylinder I'm imagining would end up around a small source of flame, maybe a candle or torch. Moroccan-style lanterns are a good approximation, although those tend to be extremely intricate. I'm not really expecting that the design would be faithfully cast onto the surroundings since the light source would be relatively unstable, so I'm mostly thinking of making the metal structure look pretty while the flame is lit. I'd like to try a few different dimensions, varying both diameter and height. Maybe start with 4" in diameter and go up from there. That's why I figured starting with very thin steel would be the way to go.
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Mar 27, 2015 05:38
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