Job vacancy- engineering turning/boring

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by nigelH

Ho Ho Ho.

I worked for the late Hitachi Seiki, can drive a Haas, most things with a Fanuc on the front, plus others although I hate Mazak CMS. I used to be able to drive a manual but that was a long time ago, think decades. You will find my signature in most of the (ex-Hitachi) Seiki Systems Ltd. software.

However these days I have a nice office and I hope to stay at the same desk with a nice view of the pier until I retire. I'm not going back on anybody's shop floor partly because I'm too expensive now.

I don't know anybody under 40 that seems to be able to cut metal. It seems to be a dieing art. I can't see why not because there's nothing really complex - just attention to detail.

Engineering punnage - good work

[Mark Chase]

Be fair thow £8-12 an hour is 16-25K a year

When i worked a a precision toolmaker for Phillips the top rate men were on 15K

That was 25 years ago. We had the very first Fanuc wire erroder in the UK.

As an apprentice my mentor Paul Sillman drove a new 2.8 Injection Capri and one of the others had a new Range Rover

How the hell do you expect to get crafts men these days when the money is so piss poor. Paul was an amazing craftsman but he packed it in to become a plumber. I wasn't bad, I did some prototype work for British Aerospace and Vaxhaul. I packed it in to put up plasterboard in Docklands My M8 back then is now a washing machine repair man. What a waste of a five year apprenticeship

CNC NC with disposable carbide and ceramic tooling took away all the fun for me. I know (or at least i did when they used Fapt) how to program a multi axis Achaean but it doesn't give me the pleasure i used to get from milling, jig boring, turning and die filing so I couldn't even do the job for the love of it these days.

No offense to the UK employers. I know how tough it must be competing with overseas suppliers so I don't blame you. When i quit I hadn't had a pay rise for five years and there was talk of a pay cut.

If I were rich my dream house would have a Bridgeport mill and Casernerve Lath in the shed and id wile away my days making jaw droppingly good dive kit

[rustferret]

Many many moons ago I trained to make watches and still have my old laith that I purchased from the old watchmaker in my village who retired when I was an aprentice.......I still have it in my workshop and to give you an idea of its age it was originally pedal powered or bow powered! Although I can use a compound tool rest I was taught to use an engraving tool free hand..........whats all this I hear about computer laiths....... or is that the thing where you feed the ticker tape in?

Rustferret

[Frankie Price]

Originally Posted by nigelH

Ho Ho Ho.

I worked for the late Hitachi Seiki, can drive a Haas, most things with a Fanuc on the front, plus others although I hate Mazak CMS. I used to be able to drive a manual but that was a long time ago, think decades. You will find my signature in most of the (ex-Hitachi) Seiki Systems Ltd. software.

However these days I have a nice office and I hope to stay at the same desk with a nice view of the pier until I retire. I'm not going back on anybody's shop floor partly because I'm too expensive now.

I don't know anybody under 40 that seems to be able to cut metal. It seems to be a dieing art. I can't see why not because there's nothing really complex - just attention to detail.

I bought a brand new Hitachi Seiki VK55 in 1990 and at the time it was about sixteen grand less than the equivalent Mazak and in my opinion the VK55 was a better machine.
My favourite software though is the Ultimax on Hurco machines.

However, most of the lads I set on promptly learned the ropes and then once out of their time cleared off for more money. Thats life I suppose, after all its what I did on finishing my time.
I don't envy Woz's task looking for skilled men. Most want a kings ransom to show up for a bare week and drink tea all day.

[Woz]

OK anyone know any decent Polish agencys for skilled men? We have an advantage as we have a Polish speaker in the company.

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

Be fair thow £8-12 an hour is 16-25K a year

When i worked a a precision toolmaker for Phillips the top rate men were on 15K

That was 25 years ago. We had the very first Fanuc wire erroder in the UK.

As an apprentice my mentor Paul Sillman drove a new 2.8 Injection Capri and one of the others had a new Range Rover

How the hell do you expect to get crafts men these days when the money is so piss poor. Paul was an amazing craftsman but he packed it in to become a plumber. I wasn't bad, I did some prototype work for British Aerospace and Vaxhaul. I packed it in to put up plasterboard in Docklands My M8 back then is now a washing machine repair man. What a waste of a five year apprenticeship

CNC NC with disposable carbide and ceramic tooling took away all the fun for me. I know (or at least i did when they used Fapt) how to program a multi axis Achaean but it doesn't give me the pleasure i used to get from milling, jig boring, turning and die filing so I couldn't even do the job for the love of it these days.

No offense to the UK employers. I know how tough it must be competing with overseas suppliers so I don't blame you. When i quit I hadn't had a pay rise for five years and there was talk of a pay cut.

If I were rich my dream house would have a Bridgeport mill and Casernerve Lath in the shed and id wile away my days making jaw droppingly good dive kit

I find the world is full of tool makers. Generally they turn out to be tools.

The problem with the money being so shite is that in hungary you can get a toolie for a month for a weeks pay here. China is even worse. Customers want it all for less and the welfare pays£18k a year for sitting on your arse if you have a family.
Its not skilled pay rates being low thats the problem, its unskilled rates are too high.Face it if i want someone to brush the floor, I have to pay £5.80 an hour. Even if they are so thick I have to shove the brush up their arse and tell them to follow the walls. I resent only being able to pay skilled guys twice that. The customer however wants to pay me less, even the MOD buys from China now.

As for CNC and throw away carbide, things move on. When my Father served his time it was all Mushet, some HSS new fangled was brazed carbide. the fastest Lathe in the shop did 800rpm. Now he uses indexable carbide on a 2500rpm lathe. he is 71 next month, he worked in DeHavilands and Vauxhall tool rooms.

The last lathe I bought has a 4000rpm spindle, thats a 6" manual machine.
the CNC`s are 6000 and 10000rpm(yes10k). The mills are all 4 and 6K spindles(ie slow, modern would be 15K+).
I was running a H13 tool steel die today, model in solidworks, programmed in cam, dnc to control cutting at 120m min, 0.15mm per tooth 2.5doc(its only a 7.5Kw spindle) finishing at around 150m min. finishing will be 10~15 minutes with a flapper in the die grinder. Total time around 12 hours,billet on floor to finished job on floor, 25 years ago you would have spent half of that polishing and about a week watching a HSS tool, if you had a hydratel. I was running two cnc`s and a manual mill.
FAPT was a museum piece over ten years ago.
I just want somebody who can do a fraction of what I do, not harp on about how good they recall they were. If I`m paying shite, the only people topping me are working shifts locally. I have seen ads running locally offering more money, but basic weeks of 42 and 50 hours!Hourly rates were lower than mine. I would expect overtime to put 25% on my rates for the year if they want it.

You have been in the rip off game to long Mark, deal with Jo public and houses, if its a big bill its a serious job. Charge a lot and they think they are getting a class service. Wonder how long you would last running a business on 5% margins.
Try and work out how a £110,000 CNC makes money at under £15/hour charge out. Mine does.

Every Engineering business I know of is absolutely rammed out with work. They all have the same problem, absolutely no available skilled labour. Believe me, skilled is getting very losely applied these days, there still is`nt any.

[Ding Dang Doo]

Originally Posted by Woz

OK anyone know any decent Polish agencys for skilled men? We have an advantage as we have a Polish speaker in the company.

There are a few on the net... I had a quick shuffty the other day, as I'm struggling to get semi skilled metalworkers, even reliable labourers are a problem. But I was under the impression the Polish/Eastern European workers were 2 a penny, but it isn't quite so, and many agencies want you to sort out accommodation and English lessons, with some time being spent helping with integration into the local community... now I want to employ someone, not be their mother! Others will do this for you, but I think you pay a premium...

I sure you've asked already, but doesn't your Polish speaker have any contacts?

Let me know how you get on,

Pete

[Frankie Price]

Originally Posted by jamesp

I find the world is full of tool makers. Generally they turn out to be tools.

The problem with the money being so shite is that in hungary you can get a toolie for a month for a weeks pay here. China is even worse. Customers want it all for less and the welfare pays£18k a year for sitting on your arse if you have a family.
Its not skilled pay rates being low thats the problem, its unskilled rates are too high.Face it if i want someone to brush the floor, I have to pay £5.80 an hour. Even if they are so thick I have to shove the brush up their arse and tell them to follow the walls. I resent only being able to pay skilled guys twice that. The customer however wants to pay me less, even the MOD buys from China now.

As for CNC and throw away carbide, things move on. When my Father served his time it was all Mushet, some HSS new fangled was brazed carbide. the fastest Lathe in the shop did 800rpm. Now he uses indexable carbide on a 2500rpm lathe. he is 71 next month, he worked in DeHavilands and Vauxhall tool rooms.

The last lathe I bought has a 4000rpm spindle, thats a 6" manual machine.
the CNC`s are 6000 and 10000rpm(yes10k). The mills are all 4 and 6K spindles(ie slow, modern would be 15K+).
I was running a H13 tool steel die today, model in solidworks, programmed in cam, dnc to control cutting at 120m min, 0.15mm per tooth 2.5doc(its only a 7.5Kw spindle) finishing at around 150m min. finishing will be 10~15 minutes with a flapper in the die grinder. Total time around 12 hours,billet on floor to finished job on floor, 25 years ago you would have spent half of that polishing and about a week watching a HSS tool, if you had a hydratel. I was running two cnc`s and a manual mill.
FAPT was a museum piece over ten years ago.
I just want somebody who can do a fraction of what I do, not harp on about how good they recall they were. If I`m paying shite, the only people topping me are working shifts locally. I have seen ads running locally offering more money, but basic weeks of 42 and 50 hours!Hourly rates were lower than mine. I would expect overtime to put 25% on my rates for the year if they want it.

You have been in the rip off game to long Mark, deal with Jo public and houses, if its a big bill its a serious job. Charge a lot and they think they are getting a class service. Wonder how long you would last running a business on 5% margins.
Try and work out how a £110,000 CNC makes money at under £15/hour charge out. Mine does.

Every Engineering business I know of is absolutely rammed out with work. They all have the same problem, absolutely no available skilled labour. Believe me, skilled is getting very losely applied these days, there still is`nt any.

This situation is now happening to some extent in the Swiss and German toolmaking companies where to remain competetive they are becoming production shops for moulds and dies. They farm out much of the general machining work to small specialists sub contractors and effectively project manage the work. They still have to pay their skilled people quite well in order to keep them.
If any of you are over in Dusseldorf for the K Show during October my company stand is in Hall 1 with all the mould makers. I wil be there for the duration so feel free to pop over for a chat and a German beer.

[nigelH]

Originally Posted by Frankie Price

This situation is now happening to some extent in the Swiss and German toolmaking companies where to remain competetive they are becoming production shops for moulds and dies. They farm out much of the general machining work to small specialists sub contractors and effectively project manage the work. They still have to pay their skilled people quite well in order to keep them.

One of the things we are seeing in batch production units is a trend towards an unmanned shop floor. You have setters and maintenance men but when they push 'Cycle Start' they walk away and the monitoring s/w calls them back if there is a problem. Monitoring writes the logs for their ISO9000 traceback and keeps the MRP/ERP updated. As has been said any people are expensive and good people need to be spread over a lot of work to even break even.

Ah me... One more bug to trace in somebody else vintage code and then it's back to upgrading a monitoring system. I have a HAAS VF2D controller sitting on my desk waiting for attention atm.

We don't seem to be helping Woz find a machinist but I'm surprised to see how many people in the business we have.

[Martin Owen]

Originally Posted by jamesp

They all have the same problem, absolutely no available skilled labour. Believe me, skilled is getting very losely applied these days, there still is`nt any.

This is a big problem in many industries in the UK, its not a shortage of skilled people that is the problem, but a shortage of people willing to use their skill in a job that pays less than the lesser skilled job they currently do. You cant blame them for that.