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Overheard a shop owner in Dayton say he'd rather hire a good manual machinist than a 'button pusher'
He was talking to another guy at a supply house, saying the manual guys just understand metal better from the start. It got me thinking about how we train new people on our VMCs. Do you think starting on manual machines first is still a must for building good habits?
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tyler_white426mo ago
But honestly, how much of that is just old school pride? A good VMC programmer needs to understand the same stuff, they just learn it on screen. You can teach someone why a tool chatters without them ever touching a manual handwheel.
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mary_ramirez676mo ago
That line about understanding metal better... it hits home. We tried skipping manual training for a few new hires and they just don't get why feeds and speeds matter the same way. You can see the gap when something goes wrong on the VMC and they have no feel for the fix. Starting on a manual machine builds a kind of basic sense you can't get any other way.
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margaret995mo ago
We had a guy at our old shop, fresh out of school with just VMC time. He crashed a $20k spindle because he programmed a plunge like it was aluminum. Tyler's right that you can learn theory on screen, but you don't get the gut fear of a manual machine screaming at you. That fear teaches respect for the cut in a way a simulation never will.
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