Thursday, October 23, 2008

Since Cents Make Sense .......


At the Machinist School, we sometimes use scents as air fresheners.
A cent is one-hundredth, in this case, of a dollar - a Penny.
The penny is one percent of a dollar.
The penny can be useful to a machinist. It can be used as a shim.
Sometimes it is used as a screwdriver.
The penny has long been used to settle arguments - "heads I win" .
With a penny in your pocket, you're never broke.

For the machinist, the penny has value as a measurement gage.
The diameter of a penny is three quarters of an inch.
Interestingly, 3 quarters is often written as 75 cents.
Machinists write 3/4 as .750" .... seven hundred fifty thousandths of an inch.
For machinists, one-thousandth of an inch (.001") is the basic unit of measure.
Actually pennies do vary in size due to wear and other factors. The penny in your pocket may vary from .750 by a couple thousandths of an inch .... maybe even more, depending on how hard a life the penny has endured.
You can even add pennies .... 4 pennies equals 3 inches. The penny is a great measuring tool.
Most measuring gages are expensive. You can buy 100 pennies for a dollar!

If you use sharp cutting tools, a can opener maybe, you have a degree of machining skill.
If anyone ever questions your machining ability, take a penny from your pocket and flip it in the air saying, "I'm a machinist and I have my own tools!"

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Machinist School - Arkansas Alligator

Are there alligators at the Machinist School in Arkansas? What you see here is an "alligator wrench" .... named for its jaws. This is a on-size-fits-all kind of tool with built-in dies to repair damaged threads. Wrenches of this type were used on farms for quick repairs on tractors, combines, bailers, plows, pumps, windmills, mowers, tillers, carriages & wagons, trucks, cars, and other things that were put together using nuts and bolts.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The Machinist Wedding Chapel

Some folks say that machine shops are dirty, grungy places - mechanistic places, devoid of that which makes for humanity.
Captured here is an example of the frequent machine shop wedding ceremonies. What better place to forge a union? ....... a machinist wedding chapel .........
Machine shops exist to improve society - to make people's lives, better. Machinists earn above average wages - they can afford to have a family!