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  1. #31
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    Just imagine trying to build the pyramids today. All computer modelled and CNC cut blocks.

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  3. #32
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    May 2012
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    Melbourne, Australia
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    I love a mixture of both sides (CNC & manual stuff I mean LOL). I built my CNC plasma cutting table and I always get a kick when I see it chopping out something that I designed in 3D cad.

    I hate this impractical modern world we have "developed". You need a piece of paper to do relatively simple jobs. The guys on site who often do the real problem solving (because the architects and designers didn't have practical know how) are looked down on because they haven't got a qualification. I'm a real mixed bag, used to be an industrial electrician (petrochemical), last 9 years were as an oil rig electrician, now doing excavation. Built my own cnc plasma table, learned arty and mechanical cad, cam, etc. Do all the repairs on my excavation gear, including line boring, repairing broken rams, repairing hydraulic pumps/motors. Mig and stick welding, built some attachments for my digger. Self taught myself on manual lathe and milling machine. Dabble in electronics and microcontroller too and am onto my "Mark V" version of a circuit board that integrates with my cnc plasma to accurately mark hole centres with a tiny crater done by the plasma torch. Rebuilt engines on several occasions and they always worked great straight after. Yet in todays world I feel like I'm worth diddly squat because I'm not specialised in one area with a piece of paper to go with it.

    A guy with a machine job shop offered me a job but sadly the pay wouldn't even cover my basic weekly expenses so had to stay in my business. Seen a different job advertised and only needed some stick welding skills and manual lathe skills. Gave them a call but had no chance because I wasn't a qualified mechanic.

    I often wonder if one day this will bite us in the . Will there be a shortage of people to do the "real work" where the real skill is needed. Everybody will have gone and got educated to get that paper to be a designer and a delegator.

    A lot of my self taught "workshop education" has came from forums like these and a mixture of modern & old time books like can be found from Camden in the UK. I wonder if any of that get taught at schools now.

    Getting back to the warpage thing in hot rolled steel. I got some 8 inch square tube for free and needed some C channel so thought I'd plasma cut the square tube lengthways to make 2 C sections. Wow, I ended up with 2 banana shaped C sections from the released stresses in the steel. That was my first intro to releasing stresses in HRS. What a waste of some good square tube LOL.

  4. #33
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    Apr 2002
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    Brisbane
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    "I often wonder if one day this will bite us in the . Will there be a shortage of people to do the "real work" where the real skill is needed. Everybody will have gone and got educated to get that paper to be a designer and a delegator"

    This has started to bite now.

    The problem is those running the projects, don't know enough to know it.

    In the communications market, we have companies ( where there are only a small number of players) who complain that they cany get qualified staff, yet they flatly refuse to train.

    I have a mate about my age and 6 months ahead of me in the trade.....he is a very solidly experienced radio systems tech with formal projact managment quals.....but he has been knocked back because he does not have experience on a specific type of radio coms.....skills and experience he would pick ip in a matter of weeks........but the same positions keep egtting readvertised and not filled.

    Its starting to bite in the AV and broadcast industries......the qualified and experienced guys have mostly gone off and are doing something else or are retired......the remainder can't even grasp the basics.

    Oh and then there are the contracting companies ( plenty of em) who go out and win the contracts in spite of having no staff to do the work at the time......then go looking for what staff they need on short notice to fullfill the contract.
    Then when the job is finished ( such that it is) there is no staff to do any maintenence......but nobody does maintenence any more...they wait for it to fail and build a new one.

    I and my mates have worked for and beside these guys...we are gob smacked at the work standard, inefficiency and the number of redoos that seem to be tolerated.

    sorry...don't get me started.

    cheers
    Any thing with sharp teeth eats meat.
    Most powertools have sharp teeth.
    People are made of meat.
    Abrasives can be just as dangerous as a blade.....and 10 times more painfull.

  5. #34
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    May 2012
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    Melbourne, Australia
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    Soundman, you hit the nail on the head. So many companies can't see the sense in looking at someones capability and working it out that with just a bit of training a new employee will be good for the business. They all want the experience in that exact area no matter how quickly it could be taught to the right person.

    I had a supervisor from a National Broadband installation company tell me that I'm easily qualified enough to do that job, and they are crying out for installation personnel. Later on I had a Telstra technician say the same thing to me about a broadband installation and troubleshooting position. But it was the usual story, you had to have worked on those exact systems before. When I think about what I have learnt at home in my own time, I can't understand how so many companies can't invest a fraction of that when it's going to make them money.

    It's so sad seeing the nations that invented / pioneered so much of the industries around today turn into this mentality.

  6. #35
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    I think too, some of the time, they are setting unrealistic recruiting goals so they can justify importing overseas labour on 457 visas.

    as far as for training good staff being good for the business.....these muppets are not interested in anything that extends past the end of the current contract.

    Of course there is the other line....yeh they are well and truly prepared to train people, when they are young green and stupid...because they don't know what the job is worth and they cant see that the contract terms are rediculous.

    A lot of the NBN work at street level is being done by rapidly trained up clean skin suckers, because they will work for less and the don't know any better.

    OH and the companines contracting the work are not communications or electrical contractors...they are labour hire companies......a lot of the cuttine edge technical work on our NBN system is being done by a company who's main business is cleaning.

    I and a number of those I have spoken to considered things like payTV installation and the like..till we saw what was being offered in the way of payment, how many jobs they expected you to do a day and the running round you had to do to collect parts and the like......$50 to install a dish and a set top box and cable it into the house..AND you provide your own cable and connectors......yeh, dont think so.

    A mate of mine hit it on the head....." NA mate, not a job for me....what you need is a couple of indians in an old L300"

    cheers
    Any thing with sharp teeth eats meat.
    Most powertools have sharp teeth.
    People are made of meat.
    Abrasives can be just as dangerous as a blade.....and 10 times more painfull.

  7. #36
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Canberra
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    769

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    Neighbour over the road is 91 years old. He invented and taught the "farm mechanics" course at my school (although before my time there). He's still very active - he got an iPad last year and despite never having used a computer, picked it up in no time and plays scrabble on it with his granddaughter.

    I was in his workshop and noticed a table he was making with some very nice, precise joinery. I complimented him on his skill with hand tools. He pointed over at his HM-50 milling machine with DROs. He couldn't see the point in doing something by hand if he had a machine there that could do the job easier, and I expect if he had access to a CNC machine he'd use that too.

  8. #37
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    Jan 2004
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    Mackay Qld
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    3,466

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    I do apologize in advance for the thread drift, but crikey I agree with Soundman.

    Industry and the government have only got them selves to blame.It was they who blindly followed the the yank niche trade training ideas.
    The trainee/apprentice is trained to the particular needs of the business he/ she is indentured to.The result,an allegedly trained person has has spent as little as three years in the trade and trained to a narrow band of skill sets.

    In the eighties and nineties Yank construction companies were regularly recruiting Aussie trades persons because they had a wide of skills sets within their trade. For instance an Aussie Boilermaker,could weld with stick,tig,mig and subarc ,could oxy cut, oxy weld ,braze and oxy gouge.The yanks thought this was brilliant and impressed by the versatility of all of our tradies.


    So what did Australia do, we copied the Americans and other countries we doing in training and trained our students with modules hand picked by their employers, so that when then Trade trained student becomes an alleged trades person and chooses to leave their original trade employer they have to learn a separate set of new skills just to cope with the requirements of a new company engaged in different work to what the student was original trained in.

    This crap was imposed on us by big business and government but small business could have had a say.
    At Tafe we set up nights for the Metals trade to attend to tell us (Tafe) what the wants and needs of their industry were. Most nights we had more teachers than bosses.

    Grahame


    .

  9. #38
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    Sep 2010
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    Lebrina
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grahame Collins View Post
    I do apologize in advance for the thread drift, but crikey I agree with Soundman.

    Industry and the government have only got them selves to blame.It was they who blindly followed the the yank niche trade training ideas.
    The trainee/apprentice is trained to the particular needs of the business he/ she is indentured to.The result,an allegedly trained person has has spent as little as three years in the trade and trained to a narrow band of skill sets.

    In the eighties and nineties Yank construction companies were regularly recruiting Aussie trades persons because they had a wide of skills sets within their trade. For instance an Aussie Boilermaker,could weld with stick,tig,mig and subarc ,could oxy cut, oxy weld ,braze and oxy gouge.The yanks thought this was brilliant and impressed by the versatility of all of our tradies.


    So what did Australia do, we copied the Americans and other countries we doing in training and trained our students with modules hand picked by their employers, so that when then Trade trained student becomes an alleged trades person and chooses to leave their original trade employer they have to learn a separate set of new skills just to cope with the requirements of a new company engaged in different work to what the student was original trained in.

    This crap was imposed on us by big business and government but small business could have had a say.
    At Tafe we set up nights for the Metals trade to attend to tell us (Tafe) what the wants and needs of their industry were. Most nights we had more teachers than bosses.

    Grahame


    .
    Hallelujah Brother, you tell it again!
    That is so true. I am I think, one of the last batches of apprentices to be multi skilled.
    I think some of the technological developments in the metal trades are brilliant and I love working with laser cut or CNC routed components. Where the wheels fell of the cart and the horse dropped dead, was as Grahame said the dumbing down of tradespersons. The application of technology should be the same as when calculators were introduced during my education - you only use them once you know how to do the task manually, hence my earlier aid to manufacture comment on CAD, CAM and CNC.
    Whoever thought cherry picking modules within an apprenticeship was a good idea should be flogged. There has been a similar phenomenon occur with heavy vehicle licences. Where once all heavy vehicles would have either had a Roadranger, Spicer or "Quad Box", that required a degree of finesse and skill to operate, recent developments such as synchromesh and even self shifting transmissions have lead to heavy vehicle licences with restrictions such as synchromesh only coming into existence. You guessed it, there is now a shortage of drivers that can operate a Roadranger.
    Everywhere skills are being eroded.
    I have an interest in war history and in the dark days of World War 2, Australia, cut off and under siege, managed to produce a home built version of the Sherman tank, the CAC produced home grown Wirraway and Boomerang aircraft and we even produced a plane similar to the P-51 Mustang that outperformed the Mustang in every way.
    I simply ask. Could we do that now?

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