I am currently attending a technical school here in South Florida and I am supposed to graduate in January. Mt instructor said I am progressing rapidly and will graduate 3 months early. I have gone through various projects on the drill press, lathe. mill, surface grinder and am now woring with a Fanuc CNC machine. I have written a handful of short programs and am starting to catch on to CNC. I am a little overwhelmed at how huge the manufacturing field is and was looking for advice on what kind of working enviroment would be the best for me to learn in. I certainly enjoy manual work, but you don't have to look at many job openings to figure out CNC is where it's at as far as employment is concerned. Any opinions on what the best choice is for me to learn to be a good machinist. I thought a job shop would be very challenging because I won't be making the same thing every day. Any opinions?
Thanks in advance for your input.

Howdy mallenby,

I finished machining school in 94. I took a job as a Tool and Die Technician supporting a manufacturing line. I enjoyed the work for 9 years but did not get a lot of CNC expereince there. Making a production line run often does not take a lot of tight tolerance machinging......often it is fixing broke fixtures, cob then in as quick as possible.

I claim those 9 years as maching experience, but I did not learn much about the machinist trade in those 9 years.

When I left a took a Job in a prototype CNC machine shop. I hung on by a string while I learned how to program, set up and operate a CNC Lathe. I'm old and CNC lathes are easy. You can make good mony as a CNC lathe machinist but might have to put in you time making less then desired for a while you get you skill and confidence, then jump around until you find an employer who will pay you what your worth.

A lot of people find CNC lathes less challenging then Mills. The pay as a CNC Mill machinist is most often better as well. Good luck and have fun. If they won't pay you what you are worth.....move on.

Of all the trades you could have chosen you chose this one? Well since you're brain isn't functioning as it should let me help you out. If you insist on staying in this field...learn both CNC Lathes and Mills. Not just one or the other. You'll be more valuable that way. Mills are the tougher of the two to master, unless you are running opposing spindle lathes with live tooling such as a Nakamura-Tome(this machine eats machinist for breakfast if they are not careful).

So in my opinion learn both.

Find a good production shop at first - with both lathes and mills. Learn the basics of production. Learn your way around a shop. Then after you feel comfortable around a shop...like basic set-up, programming, trouble shooting, fixturing, then go for proto-typing work. This is way more demanding then production and it'll definitely challenge you.

Read the post above but ignore the comment about brain malfunction.:D

In addition to getting experience on the machines continue your learning in the areas of metallurgy, properties of materials, some aspects of good design.

You are also going to have to become proficient in CAD/CAM but don't neglect developing really good programming skills in G-code.

Having a good math background is also handy in case you get involved in parametric programming, aka macro programming.

Machining is an interesting and challenging career which unfortunately does not pay anywhere near what it should.

My $.02. Start out in the manual field and get those chops sharp. They will only help you in CNC later. Even with CAD/CAM, to make a great program, you still need to understand order of operations and such so you don't machine yourself into a tight spot.

Start manual and mess around with different CAD packages, then CAM and let yourself Graduate to CNC.

I got my ticket in 96, but I'm learning new things everyday, so you never really graduate from Machinist Training.

If you've learned it all, it's best to move on to something else!!!!

Thanks for the input guys. I want to avoid the pitfall that adamant spoke about - not the first time i've heard that story about not learning anything.
I have been designing simple parts in MasterCam, but the program is huge and a bit overwhelming. I found the Manual to the mill the other day & read it cover to cover - that helped a lot. I'm lucky, the instructor is an older guy that had his own shop & is very good. I've learned offsets, how to set program zero or a couple of them for multiple parts. I'm looking forward to starting this new field & learning all I can to be a good CNC operator. Thanks for the advice.

I'm looking forward to starting this new field & learning all I can to be a good CNC operator. Thanks for the advice.

Operators are a dime a dozen. Anyone can be taken off the street and taught to push a button. You should say, "I look foward to learning all I can so that I can be a machinist."

Learn the math, learn the codes, learn to use a manual lathe, manual mill, centerless grinders, surface grainders, how to hone, how to heat treat, how to sharpen a drill by hand, how to make fixtures, feeds and speeds for cutting different materials, learn about all the different tooling so you can produce a part without burning up or breaking drills and bits...learn all that...and then keep learning...because in this field if you say you know it all...you know nothing. I've been cutting metal for almost 20 years and to this day I am still learning and I am considered to be a master machinist and yet I've barely scratched the surface of this field. If you are going into this field...aim to be a machinist...and not just an operator. :)

Hi, learn conversational software, and cad cam ASAP if you want to be in a fun cnc job. G&M code programming is simply too slow, and allows typo's resulting in rejects.

Hi, learn conversational software, and cad cam ASAP if you want to be in a fun cnc job. G&M code programming is simply too slow, and allows typo's resulting in rejects.

OK, I graduated from my technical school 10 days ago. I immediately went to work seeking employment. Had a few great interviews then I found a high end machine shop real close to my home. Funny thing is since I finished my course two months early my instructor had me study cnc programming and it was all EIA. I got hired (start in one week) with a company that is getting all new Mazak mills and lathes. I began on-line searches about Mazak machines only to discover they use conversational controls! Yikes... my brain hurts...LOL. Since I was very impressed by the new shop and fantastic benefit package, and I got along with the owner very well during the interview I accepted the job. I'll be deburring and helping out with various duties around the shop. After my 90 day probation is up i'll be training on the Mazak machines. Here's my question. I want to study these controls on the weekends so I can progress quicker when I start training. Any ideas on how to best study these controls on my own? I certainly do not regret studying the EIA, but I get a little lost with the Mazak DVD's my instructor let me borrow. Are there any good training manuals that can take me step by step on these conversational controls available? As always I thank you folks for your valuable input.
BTW, I do feel fortunate that such a high end shop thought enough of me to hire me in the first place. I would like to reward them by catching on to these Mazak machines as quickly as possible.

Let Google be your freind. here's what i found.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mazatrol+software&aq=2&oq=mazatrol

http://www.toolingu.com/dept-330-cnc-controls-mazak-training.html

I'm sure you'll find books to order or online courses.



My son is about five years ahead of you. The key for him was to bounce around from shop to shop. You don't want to get one year's experience five times. He has now ran all sorts of CNC mills, lathes, press brakes, lasers, etc. and is extremely experienced in CAD/CAM plus he learned to maintain all the machines he worked on.

He's now landed a GREAT job that pays $27/hour with 8 hours week built in overtime. Now, "green button pushers" (his name for a poor CNC operator) make 10 - 14 per hour even with years of experience in our area.

Just thought I'd share his experience with you.

Karl

Karl,

My technical center just started with ToolingU before I graduated. He says it's a good thing. I'll check it out.

Thanks,

Michael

I am currently attending a technical school here in South Florida and I am supposed to graduate in January. Mt instructor said I am progressing rapidly and will graduate 3 months early. I have gone through various projects on the drill press, lathe. mill, surface grinder and am now woring with a Fanuc CNC machine. I have written a handful of short programs and am starting to catch on to CNC. I am a little overwhelmed at how huge the manufacturing field is and was looking for advice on what kind of working enviroment would be the best for me to learn in. I certainly enjoy manual work, but you don't have to look at many job openings to figure out CNC is where it's at as far as employment is concerned. Any opinions on what the best choice is for me to learn to be a good machinist. I thought a job shop would be very challenging because I won't be making the same thing every day. Any opinions?
Thanks in advance for your input.

I thought that I was the only person on this forum that lives in S. Floriduh:)
my condolences...but anyway thats really awesome, I was considering to either getting into this field or something more or less engineering related but have been skeptical because I want to choose wisely on what to do.

Anyways, keep us posted to how it goes with everything