I was very lucky, I learned Tool & Diemaking in Germany and when we got to Chicago there were literally 100s of job openings advertised in the Chicago Tribune every Sunday.
The term Journeyman comes from the fact that when you work in a lot of different places, you learn something new in every one of hem and I did that, I even worked for Schwinn Bikes when they were still built in Chicago.
I also had the good fortune to work for the forerunners of real CNC when I got a job with Swedish Machine Tool, SMT for short, they built a 50HP lathe that recorded every motion as you made a piece.
My job was to go with the machine and teach customers to make parts, it was a great, great job and I loved it.
While doing this, I had the good fortune of meeting the early Fanuc guys, they actually came to our booth at the Chicago Machinetool Show to take pictures of our machine for later use on Fanuc.
We had no G-Codes at all, but I was offered a job by Fanuc when they were together with Siemens of Germany and were known as General Numeric.
Based on my manual machining background, it was easy to learn all parts of CNC, like:
Figure speeds, feeds for cutting and part finishes..
Hold the part securely.
Figure sequence of operation.
Calculate angles and angle-radius tangent points.
Write programs without and with the use of Canned Cycles.
Use cutter comp properly and safely.
Everything I learned, I recorded on videos and later DVDs.
I became totally self employed and traveled the US and Canada teaching shops to make parts as efficiently as possible for many, many years, it was tough, but a great job.
To start learning for free, go to youtube and put in my name: Heinz Putz, to see a DVD called CNC Partmaking.
If you ever need advice, write back, its free and I will be glad to help.
Good luck, CNC is a great job once you are really good at it: Heinz.

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