“TOOL AND DIE MAKING” 1953 NATIONAL TOOL AND DIE MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION PROMO FILM XD10964
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2023
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This 1953 film directed by Matt Farrell for the National Tool and Die Manufacturers Association looks at the importance of tool and die manufacturing for the functioning of American Industry at large. It begins with the contributions that American Industry has made to everyday life and how tools and die were used to manufacture these goods. This is followed by an overview of the apprentice system and some of the skills that toolmakers need to learn such as operation of machinery, meticulous measurement, and reading blueprints. This is followed by footage of the creation and operation of some tools and the development of cutting edge die for the accurate manufacturing of plastics.
0:17 “National Tools and Die Manufacturers Association”, 0:27 “Tool and Die Making - Keystone of Mass Production!”, 0:44 a message about the importance of manufacturing for society, 1:36 shots of modern industrial facilities and machines, 2:20 a machine making razor blades, 3:00 different appliances like fridges, stoves, and televisions, 3:36 tool and die shops including the J.A.K. Tool Co., 3:56 a man cleaning a mold for a fan blade followed by the mold in operation, 4:39 woman placing the fan blade on a fan, 5:17 a machine creating sealed beam headlight parts, 5:45 a press forming steel car body tops, 6:33 a machine creating zippers, 6:51 men operating a hot forge, 7:28 engineers working on a McDonnell F2H Banshee fighter jet, 8:02 and a Pershing tank, the K1 picket submarine surfacing, 8:17 men loading and firing anti-aircraft gun, 8:52 men building television sets, 9:21 a man at home turning on his television to a boxing match, 9:44 a toolmaker and his apprentice looking over a plan, 10:08 the apprentice working with a machine, 11:11 men working in a tool and die shop, 11:28 apprentice being instructed and then operating a drill press, shaper, a milling machine, and grinders, 12:07 apprentice heat treating metal, 12:17 apprentice learning how to read a blueprint and do math, 12:33 apprentice working independently on a tool, 13:15 the apprentice receiving his degree, 13:58 toolmakers in a shop using fixtures, 14:26 a fixture to check the accuracy of ball bearings, 14:38 a man operating a drill jig, 14:50 a man measuring with complicated equipment and overview of his gauge blocks, 16:15 man drilling holes into steel, 16:36 a man operating a printing machine that recreates molds, 17.05 a forming press in operation, 17:25 the of the press in operation, 17:46 plastic being molded, 18:09 a toolmaker preparing a die, 18:55 a boss looking over a blueprint with his employee, 19:27 finished die being prepared for shipping, 19:40 Annual Journal of the National Tool and Die Manufacturers Association, 20:06 toolmakers working in their shops on different projects, 21:34 Editor Joseph Faro, Director Matt Farrell, 21:44 Farrell and Gage Films Inc. 1953
The National Tooling & Machining Association (NTMA) is a US-based membership trade association with the collective power of 1200 thriving tool & die and precision manufacturing companies representing more than $35 billion in sales.
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I'm 72 years old this June. I've worked as a Journey level Tool and Die/ Moldmaker for over 50 years. I owned a CNC prototype shop for 30 years.
I just gave all my tools and my last two machines to a guy I apprenticed 20 years ago. I have parts that were made on my tooling on both Voyager 1 and 2. I've got parts on the moon. It's been a good life. This trade allowed me to raise three children and send them to school.
That is so cool that you have had that life, and have left a legacy. Very inspiring. Just think of your parts flying in space !
Hell yea Jim! 😎 it is one hell of a craft ain't it
Jim, thank you for your commitment to the trade and to those that follow. However, I am saddened by the fact that this country is losing its edge and the skilled men needed to keep it running. Few will ever know even the smell of a tool shop let alone the feel of a truly precision machine or tool. Oh the thought of a brand new Hardinge lathe or a Moore jig borer built back in the 60's.
All the best to you and yours!
Congrats Jim our country is lacking in people with good hands. I am an aircraft mechanic and since all of our machinists retired I sort of inherited the job, I soet of apprenticed for 20 years but I would never call myself a machinist, I'm a mechanic that can work a few machines
Nice.
My late husband was a Tool and Die maker. 45 years in the business. I was and will always be so proud of him. We never hired anyone to fix things at home. He did it. Interesting to watch this film. All those terms of the trade I had heard for 34 years of marriage. Thank you for this.
Bless you.
Along with the women who were in production, the women behind the scenes helped make our country great! Thank you...🇺🇸 😎👍☕
There are quite probably many pieces of machinery that still function today because of parts he made! As tool & die makers / machinists, I feel like we get to touch the entire world through the parts and tools we design, produce and handle. I can only assume your husband left behind a _huge_ mechanical legacy, as, I am sure, a human one. RIP :)
That was my dad, served his country during the Korean war, came out and got a education in manufacturing, started working in the Die Casting business, started a big family with car and home, and provided for us all even after his passing due to leukemia in 07, I think they don't build them like that anymore.
@@Pow3llMorgan Yes! God bless you sir 👍❤️
I was an apprentice mold maker in the mid '70's. I worked with some very talented men, and it was a great time in my life. I told them when I started that I was a sponge, and their knowledge was my water. They loved that. I miss those days and those men. I still have my Gerstner toolbox and you can see that same oak toolbox throughout this video. That toolbox was given to me by Red Rowen when he retired. It was in great shape then and still is. He left it full of precision tools and gauges. He saved me maybe $4,000. Red is gone now, but I always think of him when I open my Gerstner box. Thanks, buddy!
Great story. I also inherited my Dad’s machine tools, micrometers and other gauges; makers like Keuffel and Esser. He was an old school T and D man after the War. Retired ’72. Worked first for Consolidated, (later Con Vultee) and then Convair in San Diego. I still remember the “open houses” Convair would have for the families. I recall the hydraulic and gravity “drop hammers” and their amazing racket. These were the pre CNC days of course. It was mainly done by hand measurements, w/ very fine calibrations on superb machines. Good memories.
Wonderful story, sad things and men of value have to passed on for this thing called progress.
Nice.
I started as a grub drill press kid with a K Mart cheap ass stand up.
I wonder how many thousands of these memories there are? I inherited my Gerstner from my dad. Still using it today, and will pass it on to my son. I served my apprenticeship in 1980/84, just as the t & d industry was computerizing. It's sad to see how our trade has been dismantled by the men in power.
It's interesting to hear politicians talk about bringing manufacturing back to America. What they don't understand is that it takes six years for a person to become a proficient tool and die maker. Without tool and die makers, we cannot regain our place in the global market. Still, we send kids off to universities who have no business being there. We need more tradesmen (and women) to make our country run!
Agreed...we don't put as much value on the skilled trades as other nations do, despite the fact that somebody in the trades who's good at what they do can make a ton of money and never lack for work. It's a situation that really needs to change...
Most of those jobs and the factories they are in are now run by computers. They change the drill bits and grinding wheels by robot and use lasers to make measurements. They don't requre insurance, retirement, vacation or sick days. They work 24 hours a day without a break and never file a complaint.
@@danielebrparish4271 It's the same process as back in the day: When you do enough of something it becomes worthwhile to invent a machine to do it for you. We don't need as many people running drill presses or peering at micrometers these days. But the descendants of the old school T&D makers need to do most of what their predecessors did and build robots too. I used to know a woman in robot development; it's a busy field these days.
100% agree. I don't think anyone should graduate HS without at least 2 sem. of 'shop'.
We really don't need millions of kids going into debt to get a degree in 'mar. comm.' or other useless twaddle.
@@danielebrparish4271 I work on those machines, and I tend laugh at the "robot doesn't require sick days" because they do, and it's even more expensive than a person. I love my robots, but the one thing a robot can't do understand if a process is good or not. The tolerances might be within one ten thousandths, but it doesn't mean it's made right.
54 year old Toolmaker here, I was in at the beginning of CNC and I was able to code also. But before we did all that I was taught all the origional stuff. I was taught how the use files and a hacksaw over a whole week!. After learning all the rest (Lathe/mills etc) went on to Metallurgy and design.
My apprenticeship was at a Perfex Works, producing punched sheet metal products. The UK factory has gone now and the tooling and machines sold to another company, the site is now a housing estate. I now live in Australia and have worked on some of the largest machinery used in Iron Ore mining, including stackers, reclaimers, conveyors, crushers and rail/locos.
I still code as a hobby and build small robots for fun, fly home built autonomous balsa model planes.
We as a society wouldn’t be anywhere near where we currently are without machinists, tool and die makers.
and the lack of appreciation for that fact is a big part of why our society is collapsing.
Label me a machinest.
@@GIwillo He's not wrong, and neither are you. As a maker of 32 years and a direct victim of NAFTA, this country gave away a whole generation of skill building and knowledge in this field, and all the ancillary businesses that supported tool and die just went away. Manufacturing was like 65 % gdp back in the day, more. We were the best in making almost everything. Now? 20 years till we restart making our own microchips again. Huge security problem. Greed and globalization destroyed who we were.
@@GIwillo How can you have a functional community without respect for and understanding of the engineering that makes our modern lifestyle possible?
And Cab Callaway..
Back in the days when America was strong and bold and actually made things. We've fallen so far since these days.
Today half the kids graduating High School cant fix a flat tire, cant jump start a car, cant siphon gas, cant assemble an IKEA table, cant change a faucet. But they can go to college, get a useless degree and be 100K in debt in 4 years.
We would be doing great if it only half of the kids today were as you describe , i believe its much higher than half.
Kids have been brainwashed by the democrats to go to college and get useless degrees since at least the 70's . lets face it if you work with your hands your considered 2nd class in this country, and i speak from personal experience on that!!!!
Based on some videos I’ve seen they can’t read an analog clock either
Yep and it's our, and our parents fault. We could demand they restore the trades to HS curriculums.
So true . . . worse yet is they see no need to learn, instead they demand entry into any profession, without any knowledge of the demands of that profession. And College is not used for education but in order to make money.
@@lingcod91 I would agree. Universities should not provide useless degrees.
Some kids should look into the trades, electrical plumbing, construction, instead of history anthropology degrees.
Im 82 and served a 5 year apprenticeship as a jig and toolmaker in UK in the 1950s.
People are amazed at how I can fix things! My life long hobby has been model engineering with 7 passenger hauling steam locomotives to my name.
I have taught my Cambodian step daughter to change door locks, change fuzes, fix leaky pipes etc.
This is my business in 2023. While we build brand new tooling for new parts, some of the stamping dies we run probably date back to the 50s. Everyone these days looks up to CNC machining and 3D printing, but if you need millions of parts in a reasonable time, stamping is hard to beat.
It all comes to numbers. If you need one or a few parts which are no longer in production anymore, CNC or 3D is the way to go. Actually armed forces use portable workshops with 3D machines to manufacture spare parts when they are on mission. It is a big difference whether one can replace a broken part with a 3D print or have to fly in a spare part from another continent.
@cpm1003 do you make press brake tooling? Im after a 2-stage hinge tool. Not sure if you’re able to help, but if so, let’s get in touch. Im currently improvising my own 🙄
I belonged to the NTMA through my apprenticeship and as a journeyman shop owner till 1990 when I left because they wanted us local shop owners to get on a plane and fly to China and share our knowledge with them.. I said no way until they stop being a Communist Society.. I watched most of the Mold shops dwindle and die away over the next few years.. because they taught em how to compete with us. They were building $45k molds for $16k .. stupid. My tool and die shop made it till 2016 when I finally closed it and went to work for one of my customers. I’m still there today.. 7 years later.. I’m 67.. I though the NTMA made a fatal error in judgment.. I think I was right.
My first Machining job was working for Raytheon as a machine operator with no experience,, turning Parts for guided missiles on a small production lathe, in 1952.
As I gained experience I became a jig and fixture maker and eventually on to Tool and Die. That was the hard way for sure.
I ended up working in 6 Die shops in my life. I learned something new in every shop.
You never stop learning in the machining trade.. I retired in 1999 as a Tool and Die Shop supervisor.
I find you never learn to relax after the trade. I still work to way too tight tolerances in my work shop out back even with wood.😉
I was given a 9" South Bend Lathe for free. I made fixtures to accommodate some small milling jobs. I'm 88 now and still can't give up. LOL
what was the brand of lathe in 1952? Was it brand new back then?
40 year tool and die maker. My kids always complain when working with me. They don't understand why things need to be so close.
I was a tool and die maker just out of high school in 1983, small shop and the lead man's name was Jake. Seven years later, we named our first son Jake. Good times back in those days, running conventional equipment and only had one CNC machine. Learned how important tolerances and precision were and carried that throughout my life. I now have 37 yrs at a major aerospace company and have been in Manufacturing R&D for the last 29 yrs. I couldn't have gotten to where I am today without learning the trade from ole Jake and the rest of the crew there.
During HS and just after, I worked in a couple of shops around that time as well. I'd love to have a manually operated Bridgeport milling machine. Something about it.
Good post! I went to tech school in the 1980's and both instructors had apprenticed in the 1940's.....those guys were sharp! Learned a lot from them.
In 1973 I started in aerospace mfg. Now retired, anything I work on gets an edge break or chamfer. I hate sharp edges!
My husband has been a tool and die maker for 3O years and I wish kids today were taught more about how important they are!!! I think kids think things come from the store but it was a tool and die maker who made this happen!!!! #weneedmoretradespeople.
Like the man said…”so many things wouldn’t exist without a tool and die maker”. Let’s all band together to get kids all over north American to take tool and die!!!! Please 🇨🇦 🇺🇸
In America public schools used to have metal shop, wood shop and auto shop. Those classes were invaluable to not just toolmakers but set up all students for a life familiar with tools and their function. There is an intentional effort to create low education and low wages; with people too tired, distracted, and divided to fight for what we have lost.
I am a young tool and die machinist who also handles our shop’s fabrication work. It is a line of work that needs many more interested young people involved in it to continue to drive innovation and keep our standards in manufacturing.
👍
Is the field declining population wise? And how has automation affected the industry, has it reduced the minimum threshold of craftsmanship required to make high precision products? Or has it increased the amount of technical expertise required to be a competent journeyman?
Do they still do this in the US?
If so I assume it is just programing a CNC?
@@forrestking9372 As a whole there seems to be a need for younger guys in the skilled trades. On the topic of training; high volume production machine shops, the barrier seems to be lower with the use of CNC machining. But in an environment where I am handling tool and die work, one off repair parts, reverse engineering, and fabrication, manual machining is much more practical for most of our work. It simply is not work the programming time and setup to run it on CNC. So we have to have all of the manual machining skills in addition to CNC operation for milling, sinker and wire EDM, and waterjet cutting at my shop.
@@1978garfield CNC takes soo much time to program and setup. We only use it for high volume production jobs, and for tolling that would be nearly impossible to manually mill due to odd profiles that would be time consuming to do by hand. CNC milling, waterjet, and EDM are useful assets to what we do. But still, most of our work is manual machining and fabrication.
My grand uncle Jack used his WW2 GI Bill benefits to get a BSME, followed by an MS in metallurgy. He worked his way to being one of the top 10 tool and die designers in New England.
👍👍
Where might I ask? New England (RI) machinist here
@@user-mp8ii3ls9d Uncle Jack worked most of his career for Brown Package Machinery in East Longmeadow, MA.
One more comment from this humble tool and die maker.. after watching this I’m keenly aware of the education I got from my dad who taught me nine years and the experiences I enjoyed the last 43 years doing exactly what is seen in this video. I was trained in the same way and to the same degree as these individuals. So we’re my guys.. I’m proud to have accomplished this in my life and I have my apprentice journeyman ti also thank for sharing the experience. I’m Blessed to still do this for my occupation. They don’t appreciate us in the machine tool industry anymore.. they just open and close doors and push buttons a lot. That’s fine but I’ll take this any day.
I am part of the last generation that worked in the old manufacturing industry. Did apprenticeship ( 1980 ) with a buddy at United Shoe Manufacturing corporation ( USMC ). A once powerful and great manufacturing Corp. that allowed me to see what it was like. My fellow graduates went to different machining department's. I went to piece work on a vertical and horizontal Cincinnati mill that had 20 machines. Others went to large and small plainers, 4 spindle drill press, cutter and drill sharpening, lathe, turret lathe, and tool and dy shop. A once busy 3 shift factory with its own foundry but now 1 shift. I then worked for GE in Lynn MASS leaving as an R 25 CNC horz boring mill operator. In 87 there were layoffs and I resigned before they started. I worked in the gear plant in Lynn MASS. All the machines were manual and for large parts needing overhead cranes with crews to position and remove parts. The GEAR plant is now a vacant lot and the once proud employer of 20k employees in 3 divisions has 3,5k and 1 division. I at least had an opportunity to work in factories before our politicians sold us out
My uncle was a tool and die maker for Buick in Flint. He taught me how to build racing engines. I miss him. RIP Larry Ehr
My Dad started as a Tool & Die maker at Buick in Flint also. He went into engineering and then went up through different management positions. He was finally the Master Mechanic in the stamping plant (12). He was very proud of reaching that position. I am also a Tool maker (40 years) and have my dad's Gerstner tool box and all his tools that he used. Some of my tools were purchased by my dad from retiring toolmakers in the early Sixties. Some of my tools are close to a hundred years old. Still work great! 75 percent of what's in my Tool box is older than me. I'm proud of my dad's and my career. My Dad and I still work on projects together and still use our training and engineering abilities to build some cool things.
My 1st wife's family were all tool and die makers for General Motors. They each worked over 40 years in the trade. Her father was a tool room welder, one of her uncles was a group leader and the other ended up being superintendent of the tool room.
None of their children wanted anything to do with the skilled trades and I am the only one who did. My Journeyman's card is as a Plant Utilities Engineer and I have been in the trades for close to 50 years myself. I have some of their tools and a couple of great wooden tool boxes to keep them in.
I try to get young people interested in the skilled trades and help them in any way possible to make them into good reliable tradesmen. This is the only way to keep the trades alive...
My grandad also tool and die maker for GM is whole career, all graveyard shift. He had amazing tools at home that I as a child could barely decipher what they did. When he retired they brought him back to train the next generation
I have my dad's wooden tool box. He was a tool & die repairman for Delco Products in Kettering, Ohio.
Retired now and I miss the trade, worked 50 years as a tool & die maker. Watched from filing dies to wire edm. The computerized machines took it away from America to lower paid workers with less bench skill, but you cannot stop progress. Cheaper cost products but improved quality. These are the good old days, right now.
You still need people who can translate a design or prototype into a working tool
My father was a tool and die maker and a mold designer. Our government sold out the tool and die industry in the early 1970's. They not only ruined their markets by allowing cheaper overseas companies to come in, they literally starved them out of business by giving defense contracts to offshore companies.
We are now seeing the results of our own governments greed and malfeasance as a third generation of American kids is graduating into the work world with no manufacturing skills or even basic knowledge of mechanical or electronic devices.
My dad was the son of a Swedish immigrant tool and die maker. Dad told me many, many years ago about the gauge blocks whose surfaces were so precise that they would literally stick together. Our country really lost a lot by deindustrializing. I got to see the very tail end demise of much of our manufacturing prowess when I started as an engineer in 1980. I hope we get that back someday. GREAT video!
It's called "marrying", pushes out the air and creates a vacuum but the surfaces must be very smooth. They are really tuff to get apart
My grandfathers were tool and die people from Sweden as well. My father followed in their footsteps, and my mom was in industrial supply sales. I, too, saw the downfall of manufacturing in the Midwest starting in the 70's in the upper Midwest. I went into EE and started writing firmware for industrial controls, then biomedical and into RTOS. My background from the machine tool world has been priceless over the years.
Are you still in it, or retired?
@@stanbrown915 I've done that with sharpening stones. Using 8000 grit and 10000 grit with water. Dang near impossible to undo that without damaging either one. That is now on my 'do not do' list.
I work at a small manufacturing company, we make precision machined components for industry. Most of our output comes from a pair of automated CNC mills, but all the processes require custom-built jigs and fixtures that are designed in-house and fabricated by our machine shop. So even though the parts we make are going into things like satellites, they still rely on someone who knows how to run a milling machine, lathe, drill press, etc.
The Navy jet at 7:27 is a North American FJ-1 Fury. Note that the image is reversed. The "S" tail code is for Carrier Air Group 5 (CVG-5), squadron VF-5A. The jet engine being installed, and detailed at 7:38, is an Allison J35-A-2 turbojet.
A couple of F9F panthers at 7:46 also
Not Grumman Panthers, they're McDonnell F2H Banshees.
I worked in the Tooling shop as Jig & Fixture builder for McDonald Douglas Aircraft during the 60's. We built production tools for the DC 10 and various missile/space systems. I personally worked on the engine (third stage) test stand for the Saturn Five launch vehicle, it was enormous. So I contributed in some small way to the flights to the moon. I spent the early years of my working life there as a young apprentice.
I worked for McDonnell Aircraft in the sixties too. I worked in tooling in Building one. It was a good job
@@bingosunnoon9341 Yes, I was in the Jig n Fixture shop (Dept 632) ... I was 18 when I became an apprentice. All the journeymen had been there since before WW 2. I loved my time there. I went back some years ago to find it all gone and an a/c museum there. So many memories 1966/1969.
I am from India, in 1960 my father started, die making in Delhi, with one lathe, drill, tool Post grinder. Actually my father was a Engraver. At that time, only 5-10 mold maker, and 5-7 from my community. So you can say that, The starting of die making was started by my community in Delhi, India.
When I graduated highschool in 1996 our career counselor told me I would be a bum if I did jobs like this and that I need to go to college and learn computer programming because there is this thing called the Internet that was starting up and if I get in now I will be set for life. That wasn't true and now we have a shortage of people who can do this kind of technical work. Thank you public education.
Exactly. I graduated in 2004, and most of my teachers pushed college degree w/ a desk job. Only ones who pushed trades were the teachers in the vocational school.
There are already too many people doing computer programming. (...said the Comp Sci major...) Trust me, the world doesn't need more half-assed programming; we've already got plenty. If you can make a living building useful things, go for it.
And now the same one's complain when they can't get a tradesmen to do the simplest of jobs, and these tradesmen are now able to name their price 😅😅
Your counselor was right. Ronald Reagan destroyed the industry. It is a crummy job now. A world famous employer where I live pays tool makers 15 dollars an hour now for tools that mold shoes and other consumer products. I won't say the name but it rhymes with Mikey.
Back in 1980 I got my hand severely injured in a small punch press. The safety mechanism failed. Without getting into unpleasant detail, it did give Shands Teaching Institute at USF to use my hand as the first one to give them the opportunity to perfect a procedure. As such my hand is in their orthopedic text book. It has helped future patients. Thank you for posting what the American Dream used to look like.
If americans could come back with these types of production like in the film house appliances it will easily beat china. I remember those old electric fans they are build like tanks.
the problem is, those fans cost a week's pay for most people. people actually want cheap stuff, not good stuff...we live in the age of the "consumer", not the citizen. 😔
I see friends who stay broke with the mentality: "buy cheep, then replace it with another cheep one every year".💸💸.@@douglasharley2440
Buy American; the job it saves will be your own.
@douglasharley2440
You're absolutely correct, modern consumers just want new things regardless of quality because they want the next new model or version as soon as it's available.
Cultural pride in manufacturing is long gone
@@douglasharley2440 you nailed it down! QUALITY. The reason why my old home country (I'm living now in switzerland, lake geneva, francophone area of CH) Germany has survived so well WAS (past term) that we became the chinese of europe.
High quality in cheap prices. Well put aside HQ, neither for chinese nor TODAY german made stuff. Since Merkel it's a dying country.
Please forgive me but we are still under occcupaition of the US-Military so likely germany is the 51th. state of the USA... (please go - same for other countries your goverment messes around)
Now under the leftist parties (greens and the SPD /communist party) it's over.
True words from UK/Thatcher: The EU is going to work as long the germans are paying for it (black mail wise)
SO now the EU is close to collapse NO MORE MONEY from Germoney...
End.
Cordial greetings form a north german (Hannover, Hamburg, Kiel) clock and watchmaker -
Géréon
My uncle' used to be a tool and Die maker in the 70s he worked long and hard he made a lot of money doing pieces work you have to be on the ball to this type of work
👍
My Dad emigrated to the US with my mum in '65. He got a job as a tool and die designer for GM. I popped out in 66 so I missed England winning the world cup.
I was living in the US and doing high school in the early 80"s There were no apprenticeships to be found. We we're going to move back to the UK and my dad's mate said about apprenticeships at Rolls Royce but by the time I got back, they had dried up.
I ended up doing architecture but the more I see manufacturing videos, the more I think I missed my calling. I like doing things with my hands. When I first got into architecture it was all hand draughting but then came the computer and I've been driving a mouse ever since.
I"m your age.....it's never too late to start, if you have the resources.
HA! I LONG for the days of mylars, sepias, ammonia and a 30' layout on a wall with people looking and pointing to details to a group instead of looking at a small (Chinese) monitor.
I work in a small time tool and die shop run by my uncle. I’m working my way to learning the trade from him and another well experienced tradesman. Super cool video!
👍
Retired after over 40 years mostly in metal stamping. 4 years retired and I miss it.
12:03 Starrett Last Word indicator. They still make them.
Ive been doing centerless grinding,surface grinding, and form grinding for 24 years, damn good trade to work in,no student loan debt either,you earn as you learn
It's amazing what we had, and trying to get custom parts now, it's also amazing how much we've lost in the last few decades. I have enormous respect for those that create jigs, dyes, and tools! I wish we still had prevalent apprenticeships and journeyman work, but it seems pretty hard to find good ones these days.
We've lost so much in this country. Being a tool and die maker or a master millwright or any of a number of other jobs used to be a respected field, and as noted in the film, you had job security. Much of that has either gone with the idea of skilled labor or is done in other countries where more traditional values still hold sway. If we could just get it into the heads of the younger people that working with your head and hands is still a good way to make a living! Welders, plumbers, machinists, tool and die makers, pattern makers. Instead they want a cushy office job, or no job at all and let the taxpayer support them! Bah! The ramblings of an old man I suppose.
Don't forget the man with an ax and saw that could build a House in the Forrest
As someone who has had some amature metal working experience, I realized years ago that tool & die makers are incredibly talented in their abilities to create incredibly precise dies that result in perfectly formed stampings; so precise, that the stampings can be used to check the straightness & accuracy of other parts.
I spent 44 years in the manufacturing industry. I started out as a milling machine machinist, then N/C (Numerical Control) Programmer, Designer, and finally a cutting tool designer & process specification writer for a couple of aerospace companies. Starting out with learning how to work with my hands laid the foundation for my career, and even in retirement, I still call upon those traits learned, truly not so long ago.
I had never realized that NC was a thing before CNC.
What was Numerical Control?
@@1978garfield N/C started out using punched tape in binary code. When computers started coming into play, you wrote the source code in APT - Automatic Programmed Tool language, similar to the old FORTRAN style of language. You created your geometry using specific terms, then create tool path to drive the cutting tool, whether it be on a milling machine or lathe. The code would then be run through a post processor which created the specific XYZ coordinates, preparatory functions - G Codes, and auxiliary/miscellaneous functions - M Codes. CNC - Computer/Computerized Numerical Control had logic built into the machine controller module that recognizes G/M codes as well as XYZ coordinates. It does the post processing for you in a way.
@@danielneuenschwander7381 Thank you for sharing your experiences. I'm a clock and watchmaker (born 1. march 1989, 2006 to 2009 watchmakerschool in Hamburg, north Germany, worked 1 year 2014 in the repairs department of Audemars-Piguet, Switzerland)
If it's allowed to say - I think NC / CNC started the decline of our trades.
Computers are making people lazy and stupid ESPECIALLY the smartphone (I call them smarties fans or german: smarties-fön. Fön = fan. German for telephon is written telefon...)
Today, even 2006 to 2009 during my apprenticeship in Hamburg, there a nearly NO one who are able to grind simple chisels EVEN with a high class grinder with scales... (like the Deckel ones).
Terrifiying.
CNC machinists are also lost if you ask for angles of an good HSS chisel to work on silversteel for a normal lathe...
I think we must become humans again and go back to the technics of 1955 with more refinement.
Cordial greetings!
Géréon (I'm living now in the frenchspeaking area of switzerland, lake geneva, the side where the river "Rhône" enters the lake... Independant watchmaker, but more into fine scale modell building and tin plate toys. watches are ~"boring" xD and the customers are too arrogant)
Machines were run off paper punch tape, that were created on a teletype machine. Typed in from the programer's notes. No stored memory in those machines. (the 'C' (computer) in CNC)
@@stratostatic Thanks!
I had actually seen footage of those machines.
I didn't know if there was a box full of vacuum tubes the size of 2 side by side refrigerators someplace that was the computer.
Good to learn it was analog.
My father served in the navy during the Korean war and upon discharge went to L.A. Trade Tech for Tool and Die making on the G.I.Bill after he got his first job at L.A. Die Casting and because of both his training and leadership skills climbed the ladder and became a shop foreman and then Manager at the machining and assembly division, he put in fifty years until illness caused him to retire.
Respect!
I spent much of my career marketing the tools and materials for Southwest US style jewelry. Much of what was needed in any given piece of personal adornment could be had, at one time, from items produced in factories. My company's highest-paid (hourly) person was a tool-and-die maker. He drew plans out on the white paper bag left over from his order at a Blake's Lotaburger. Chalk on the concrete floor was another medium for his great art. He truly lived in the real world and in the moment. Miss you, Jake!!!
This is timely given Destin's, from Smarter Every Day, video on this. Really cool.
A huge thank you to everyone who left a comment.
Perusing through the comments brought me a lot of joy and memories of my 40 year career in aerospace manufacturing.
I was one of the last people to meet with William Grede who was the head of Grede Foundry located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His wife and daughter were with me when I met him in his private suite at a nursing home located in Brookfield, Wisconsin. It was a Friday afternoon when we went to see Mr. Grede. He died the following Sunday afternoon in June, 1989. When I attended his funeral there were roughly 3,000 people who were there in Wauwatosa in attendance. It was an impressive funeral and I was honored to be there. America at its finest. As we spoke that Friday afternoon, Mr. Grede was confined to a wheelchair and was tapping his cane on the foot pedestal of the wheelchair. He lost his ability to speak but it looked as though he was indicating the wheelchair could have been made better. Remarkable. All the way to the end.
You were an employee of the nursing home? Sounds like Mr Grede was a great guy! Is the foundry still in business?
@@je862 No, I wasn't an employee of the nursing home. Because of my related work I was invited by his daughter to see Mr. Grede. America does not produce men like this anymore.
@@je862 No, I wasn't an employee of the nursing home. Because of my related work I was invited by his daughter to see Mr. Grede. America does not produce men like this anymore. Grede Foundaries is still in business but they have diversified obviously.
@@hydrogreen1111 Gosh I sure miss folks of that generation. Thanks for your reply.
@@je862 You're welcome. These men of that caliber are non-existent. America is not producing men like this anymore. When I met William Grede he was in his wheelchair and he was tapping the foot rest with his cane. Because of his age and health condition he lost his speech but his wife and daughter told me he was trying to convey to us how to make the wheelchair foot rest better.
I am a retired " tool & die maker".
40 years on the job.
Loved every minute of it!!!
I was an apprentice when i was getting startes at 17yrs old. 49 now and have had a wonderful career as a machinist. Ive done things such as tool grinding and making, manual mills of all sizes, manual lathes of all sizes, cnc lathe and mills, programming and supervisory positions. Love it, i like going to work every day!
My father was a mechanical engineer who designed machinery that produced the first flexible circuits back in the late 60's 70's. So many nights at the dinner table I would hear the conversations between him and my mother about his day at work, which included many stories of the miracles the local tool and die shops would perform to get his machines into production. You could tell he had so much respect for those guys, he always talked highly of them.
He wasn't the guy that made the flexible printed circuits Ford used in the 70's was he?
If so I want to ask him why the left turn signal on my 76 F100 glowed anytime the headlights were on.
@@1978garfield . . lol . . . no, he designed the machines that manufactured the hard boards and flexible circuits that other companies purchased to produce their circuit designs. AT&T used to buy a lot of his machines to produce their circuitry.
General Electric apprentice1971-1974. Provided a good career for35 years. Enjoyed making things with my hands.
Michael Moore explained the then development of the " rust belt " and deindustrialization of the North East auto manufactures. My husband showed me all manner of equipment being shipped to the far east to manufacture thing's to be sold to us and the world. Good for them ( mostly ) and abilities to make things non existent in the usa and few places to learn trades. Michael Moore warned us over 25 years ago. We made our collective beds.....
My uncle was a tool and die maker at US Steel’s Gary Works
After being rigorously trained as a tool and die maker for four years and an experience of 34 years thereafter I can very well relate to every word in this video. Thanks and blessings from India. A proud Tool & Die Maker trained at an institute more than 50 years old - ‘Tata Motors Training Division’ ❤❤
I started my formal apprenticeship at Premier Tool Works in 1979 through the Tool and Die institute. The owner at that time Carl Gutman paid for my education. Thank you Carl and Winifred Gutman for all you did for me!!
Master Tool Makers like Jan Wayne Barkdoll, Francis Stols, Alfred Milek, Walter Dizerwa were incredible men to work with.
In my career I was able to serve three apprenticeships.
Machinist, Tool and Die maker and plastic injection mold maker.
I want to encourage any young person reading this to seriously consider becoming a tool maker! With great joy I can say ....
It has and still has had a profound effect on my life, my wife's life and my children's lives.
Being a Toolmaker is truly one of the greatest gifts God has ever given to me.
Thanks for the awesome comment.
I worked in a foundry moving cast out of these huge ovens. If u got burned it just seared u immediate cooking. Gloves, steel toes boots, eyewear and a helmet. Nothing but your flannel shirt over a long underwear top in the summer. Being 19 in college doing this in the summer u learn to crush future semesters fer sure😮
Ray Leno said: "you recognise a true steam car guy with burned/lost eye browns" remembered me of your commmet ! Thanks! xD You has been (still are?) a hot guy!
We reside not too far from The Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Media, Pennsylvania where they’ve cranked out some of the best machinists for over a century !
I graduated from Williamson (machine shop) in 1982. That education has opened many door for me over the years.
I’m a Mechanical Engineer. I graduated college in 86. I rely on men like this to produce the things that I and my team design. The men who produce these things are true craftsmen.
Thanks !
Two and a half decades after this film I became an apprentice with the British division of an Michigan machine tool company and working to the standards illustrated, if not perhaps higher again with the introduction some electronic inspection equipment. The standard was high in the approach and the motivation of the people. Today, it is rare to find, though we need such capability. It's hard for me to find a shop in my area that can work to an order of magnitude less tolerance than illustrated in the film. How do we manage? Well, I guess there are just enough... but this indicates that wealth is draining from our economies at grass roots level. I salute my colleagues of the past, both sides of the pond!
My grandfather was a tool and die maker in 1953 when I was born.
My dad learn the trade at Illinois Institute of Technolgy after World War II on the GI bill much of his training was in secret government projects. The only two he would talk about was what became the M39 Auto cannon used in the F100 Super Sabre and F5 Freedom fighter. The other project was a boosted rocket gun project for the F89 scorpion that lost out to the Mk 4 Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket due to being too accurate. It could put a burst into one meter at 1,000 Yards. After IIT he found work at Anchor coupling company making compression dies to attach coupling to hoses and later worked in the coupling prototype shop. All that with only upper half vision field in his left eye. He lost is right eye at age 12.
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Love these old documentaries. I grew up with them in class rooms in 50s and 60s. America was a very different place in those times. Thank you for this.
I run manuals in the fab shop i work at as well as welding/ fabricating i enjoy it. something about turning a peice of nothing into something is quite satisfying.
GREAT episode!
In those days, tool and die making and all the other industrial and construction trades training began in junior high school with mandatory wood and metal shop classes for boys. Industrial drawing was also part of the curricula.
My 7th & 8th grade wood and metal shop classes, Mr. Bulecca and Mr. Edge, at Barron Ave. Jr. High School in Woodbridge, NJ in 1964 & 1965 were the best times in my school career.
I was trained by WW2 vets, brilliant guys. CNC seriously dumbed down the trade. I have a few years left, can't wait to get out.
Same here, steelworker Union
computers make people stupid and lazy... a lot of the work show here is lost knowlegde. Today a CNC guy can't grind a simply chisel even with a pricise tool grinder (with scales so no free hand) cordial greetings from a north german (Hannover, Hamburg, Kiel) independant clock and watchmaker, living now close to the lake geneva, french speaking switzerland.
I was trained by an old German machinist that was there when the allies were bombing the hell out of Germany's manufacturing plants. He had some interesting stores... He sure put me on track to become a first rate machinist.
I'm a machinist in a job shop, mostly manual but run an old ProtoTrak milling machine here and there. C'mon I know what you're saying but CNC has a lot of pros, undeniably so. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Ideally machinists should know all there is to know & there's a lot to learn, a great machinist will pursue a well rounded education, toolmakers included. These days in the US that's how you get paid, and boy is it a criminally underpaid trade. That being said, if you want to avoid CNC then go right ahead, someone else will learn and get paid more than you. And make no mistake, I am not referring to CNC operators.
Don’t fret too much, there’s still lots of this kind of work going on here in the United States. As things are destabilizing in Asia politics a lot of companies are reshoring their production back here
You should rethink your statement. Look at the fiasco of trying to bring manufacturing for Craftsman back to the US.
Unfortunately, this is not true.
They’ll just move that manufacturing to another low cost country. It will not return to the West, unless it’s a high end product.
Very interesting doco. Great narrator. 😊
I grew up in my father’s toolmaking workshop. As an 8 year old I made my own Apollo rockets on the Colchester Student lathe. He never let me on the Cincinnati Bridgeport mill 😂
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Cincinnati Bridgeport mill????
@@alro2434 I assume they meant Cincinnati vertical mill
@@user-mp8ii3ls9d There are guys who use the term Bridgeport as a generic term for a vertical mill.
I wouldn't let an eight year old use one of the big boys either; those things are expensive.
Thank you for another great video rescue
As stated, America's strength has been it's ability to take raw materials and build useful things from it. We shipped all these jobs overseas. Why? Because of greed , we are no longer the strong country we used to be.
I had to complete my Toolmaker apprenticeship before I could start my training as a engineer for Rolls Royce in the UK.
See now that’s sick… bc as an engineer you shouldn’t be able to design anything without really being proficient and aware of how things are actually made
it's an open secret that many machinists hate engineers for this very reason, unless those engineers were once machinists...@@tjlovesrachel
@@user-mp8ii3ls9d It's the same in the military - most of the grunts' bitching about officers goes away when they're led by a mustang.
I worked 8 years in the ford Dyno lab machine shop, learned so much. This video reminds me of lab so much
What years did you work there?
I know this place. My dad used to work for Beecher Tool & Die
great info. thanks!
This is extremely interesting!
I am currently a tool and die maker and love my trade and would recommend it to anybody 😊
Too be honest - - I don't think young people of today have the patience or attention spans needed to do this precision work.
Many seem to be pre-occupied with instant gratification or the attitude of "let a machine do it".
Thanks!
Thanks so much. Gifts like this help us preserve and present more rare films.
Apparently moving from an apprentice to a journeyman involves the addition of a necktie.
wish we all still talked like this
Nice to see PPE being more common place. I remember a WW1 era fim of people grinding bayonets with no eye pro at all
My dad was a tool & die repairman at Delco Products in Kettering, Ohio. Most of my mom's side of the family (Stites) also worked for GM or other tool shop in the Dayton area.
dang, I wish our country still stood for this..
If you want to piss off a tool and die maker do like I did to my employer when I was using a surface grinder. I told him "I need to sharpen the grinding rock."🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
As Shakespeare said. Almost all angle grinders are used to grind angle iron at some point but how many die grinders ever grind a die?
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I'm a retired tool and die person too, from the printing press industry. I find it ironic that many industries have given up training T&D people in favor of using non-toolmaker trained CNC programmers from universities. Now they're all whining they can't get quality help anymore or the cost is too high because of Unions, so they farm it out to foreign countries.
I've fixed so many screwed up projects in my life because these so called university engineers had no T&D experience themselves and didn't even now the basics. I've actually met guys who didn't know how to determine a press fit clearances, , or a calculate a running fit, etc.or couldn't even properly tolerance a machine drawing. Really a sad state of affairs these days! I laughed at the opening comments that automobiles could be afforded by anyone because of mass production, not anymore. At $50,000 a pop most average people struggle to or can't afford a car, or a washing machine anymore, or anything else for that matter. A remember hearing production managers tell us T&D guys CNC would replace us all!! But they never told us who would have to program them!!
I've been a machinist/toolmaker since the 1980's and in my long career I've only worked with 1 engineer who was a toolmaker for many years before becoming an engineer. A lot of times when he was designing something, he would come out to the toolroom and make the part himself, before assembling it into whatever it was being used for.
I always said the best engineers are the ones that have machining experience first. I'm not saying an engineer without machining experience is not a good engineer, but it definitely helps.
I 100 % concur with you on that observation! The best engineers I've ever met were gear heads in high school, built cars and motorcycles, gokarts, grew up playing with Erector Sets & Meccano toy sets, model airplanes and boats.
A few worked as machinists when going through college. Many of my mentors who turned out to be top engineers were ex -WWII Navy machinists during the war stationed on ships and after the war went back to engineering colleges.
It is nice to know there are still a few of us alive who actually learned real engineering and were able to apprentice with real engineers and machinists - not just book mathematics and formulas. @@je862
Awesome!👌🏻
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The building i work in was formerly a tool and die company my boss' father owned. We have quite a few real old machines they used. Now we fix molds(among other things) with precision welding done under a microscope.
Thumbs up. A pleasure to watch. Sick of the overpriced Kachava ads.
My birth father Kenneth Anderson was T and D maker for Ekco in Chicago.. I always wondered exactly what he did. Thank you for this. Miss you Dad Ken.
Btw: i'm using my late husbands TH-cam account. I am Teri Woolum LeFevers.
High schools get gutted, rather than... I learned machining at 14yrs old. Completely hirable at graduation. I took an extra college course because I didn't want to be 'that guy'. CNC not invented. Math, measurements, prints and set up transferred to the table. Only one way. Thru Your personal competence on the job...
Though I retired as pro arborist. (tree guy). lol
I remember seeing either this or a simmilar short film on tool and die when i was in middle school.
35 years old, and coming up on 14 years in the trade now.
I can't even name the projects I worked on but I do remember the Abrams, some Boeing and the awesome Dodge Viper. Even a plastic casket and one of the original wavy slides for kids.
Awesome video😮
Those were the days.
YES - much more human friendly. Techs with brain AND heart and golden HANDS. Let's try that work a computer nerd... 0 1 00000 1 00000000 ZERO
I have 57 yrs as a tool&die &mold maker when I walked into my first shop I had never seen one but I instantly knew I could make some things in there I've done aerospace automotive just about anything you can think of you never quit learning but sense industry went offshore tool&die has basically died CNC has replaced alot if we don't bring it back we won't be the nation we were. All us old guys will be gone soon there will be no one to teach
We have another world War ( which we are getting close ) we are screwed!
I was a 3rd generation Toolmaker in my family. It was pretty cool. I worked in national defense, aerospace, medical/surgical instruments, forging, injection molding, progressive stamping dies, etc. I eventually became the 5 axis, voodoo Machinist that everyone came to for answers. 😆
thanks for good usefull document i like continue with my best whiches
It's been a very good trade to me.
and now, 70 years later, I do this exact job, in the netherlands making parts for shavers. many methods have been modernised and improved but the basis is now and will always be the same
CNC is much more easier. And unfortunately a CNC machinist is today very often unable to grind a HSS chisel for silversteel for a classic lathe or mill.
Simply my experience in 2006 to 2009 where I had my apprenticeship as a clock and watchmaker in the clock and watchmaking school of Hamburg.
2 watchmakers out of 35 were able to do that... Brainpowerwise...
Same for fine-mechanics (~tool and die makers) in the same building learning. The computer and especially the "smart"phone are making people lazy, crazy and stupid.
I call them smarties-föns (fön = fan).
I'm living now at the lake geneva as an independant watchmaker, but I'm more in classic (tin) toys and fine scale models as watches and especially the industry is disgusting (arrogant customers and balloon egos chefs. I've been in the repairs department of Audemars-Piguet - no more - no thanks. Greedy without end, more more more, stress stress stress, to watchmakers - the orange is empty and they still want more for the SAME orange - there is a human limit and they ignore it. Not for the double money which was CHF 4'200.- net /month and that is what you get in a supermarket full time BEWARE - I've worked also in supermarket for a time - makes you crazy)
cordial greetings -
Géréon
Making parts for razors? I actually switched to using those double edge blades like in the film. Better and cheaper way of shaving.
@@bluegrassman3040 i know, i just work there as a toolmaker.
@@eriksnel6461 I’ve been shaving with DE blades since 2010 or 11. My dad gave me my grandfather’s Gillette Slim razor, and it’s my go-to razor. Believe it or not, I convinced him to switch back to DE shaving.
Grew up in Wisconsin, close to Milwaukee, the machine shop of the world.
I wonder how much of the equipment in this video was shipped overseas?
For their factories or as scrap.
probably scrap, no one can run it or rebuild it. It blows me away how good equipment gets scrapped due to the high cost and lack of skills involved in rebuilding it.
A lot of machinery got sold off cheap after WWII, and ended up in home shops and garages. Some eventually sat in storage sheds for years. A friend and I were tracking down old equipment and restoring it. We literally dug a lathe out where it had sunk into the mud behind a barn over the years.
i wish there was still a future in tool and die making in the united states...our society would be in a far better state. 😔
Greenfield, Vermont, and a few others are still around
@@bleebleblahble8833 great to hear!...but i'd bet that there aren't more than a couple thousand tool and die-making jobs in the usa _left_ these days, so it's not something young people can really aspire-to, unless maybe they have a relative who is already in one of those jobs and they live in one of those towns.
@@douglasharley2440 There’s way more than ‘a couple thousand’.
I happen to be in my 3rd year of my apprenticeship. There's definitely still a need. In fact, due to years of nobody going into trades, there's only 1 apprentice for every 7 guys retiring.
@@Vetdadwisom great news, congratulations! i myself have mostly-enjoyed a long career as a software engineer, but lately i am growing increasingly disillusioned with "tech". i have been teaching myself machining and related theory, so maybe i'll be able to get a job in a few years...lol, i got no plans on retiring _ever!_ peace
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