How did you start machining and how fast did you progress?

[glenthemann]

I worked in shops throughout my summers at my fathers place of business and eventually I made the decision to start an apprenticeship rather than going to university (please dont berate me about my decision, I thought long and hard about it and it is infact the best decision I think I've made in my life).

Ive always loved math and programming and doing hands on stuff so this line of work just seems to fit with me well.

I started full time at the beginning of the summer last year, and at the time I pretty much just plugged parts all day long, doing random deburring and other odd things inbetween cycles. I started paying attention to the G code and asking questions and eventually taught myself..

I'm coming up on a year of full time work now and I am looking at getting another raise (I got one in october +3$!!). I am at the point now where I can setup and program conventional 3 axis mills (our haas, matsurra and milltronics) and our conventional lathes without much help at all, my main issue is my lack of experience so I have some tooling and speed&feed questions from time to time.

As of right now I am pretty much in charge of maintaining, operating, programming and setting up our swiss lathes (2 citizens and a star). I went to citizen in new jersey in march for training and that was a blast. Obviously I am not the only one, there is another guy in the shop which guides me with tooling selection and stuff, but the goal is to get him out of the shop and doing more managerial work (hes done his time on the floor and its time to move on) and to get me running the shop.

I think I am moving along fairly well for only being seirous about this for a year, and I am actually not even registered as an apprentice yet, but I have a feeling within another year I'll be able to write the exam for my ticket without any issues even though Ill have another 3 years of experience to gain...

How did you guys all start, and how fast did you move up? I did everything I could to get away from standing at a machine loading material and pressing go all day long though I still have to from time to time. I love programming and setting up jobs, it makes the day blow by compared to plugging parts! I love my job