Happy holidays…

[david pierce]

William,
As far as I know, the watchmaker lathe and graver system is the only aspect of machine work that still functions on the old “by gosh and by golly” system. When World War 1 came, the need for interchangable parts and the design of metal working machines began to phase out machine work as an art, and turned it into an engineering endeavor. Outside of watch repair everything that I know of is cut to a mathematical model. This became even more so after World War 2 when the introduction of NC and later CNC machinery allowed the manufacture of complex geometrys on a repeatable basis. Can you imagine a set of helicopter blades where one blade is slightly different than the other; I would not want to fly in that helicopter. This was a paragidm shift that had to be made in order for products to work consistantly and properly. If you go to Youtube and look at the inside of major watch factories today you will see CNC mills, CNC wire EDM machines, CNC Lathes etc. and very few, if any, work being done with gravers on watchmaker lathes. Documentries of several watch factories during World War 2 tell pretty much the same story but with cam controlled machines instead of CNC. So is it “left handed” or “right handed”? Actually the information is now dialed into the machine and the cutter is fed under power.
david

[willofiam]

Hey David, thank you, I feel there is a loss when the machine does all the work like a cnc ect… but, I would have had a hard time making a screw without the machine doing alot. I suppose drawing a line somewhere and still being able to accurately accomplish the task. I was actually referring to the cost being a arm and a leg and trying to decide which arm would be better to cut of for a machine like that. William

[david pierce]

William,
It is really about working with your mind and not your hands. Have you ever met anyone who could actually remove metal with their bare hands? Also, there is a concept that running a CNC machine takes less skill than running a manual machine. I have done both and have found this not to be true. After serving out an apprenticeship on manual lathes and mills, the owner of the company asked me to take over the CNC department. I ran it for nine years before getting the position of VP of engineering. I have never seen one instance where these machines ran themselves. I did however see the person who replaced me turn over $100,000.00 in MARTA train gears into scrap metal. Whenever you see a video of these machines running you only see the spray of coolant and the machine making parts with no one turning any handwheels. What the video does not show is the planning, programing, tool and fixture making, machine set up, testing and inspecting that must go on in order to produce correct parts. These machines can make a lot of good parts fast but they can also make a lot of bad parts fast. They can also produce complex geometries that would be extremely difficult or impossible to do with manual machinery.
david

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