Machine trade in tailspin

[Martin]

Did anyone else see the article in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sat and Sun about the mold making industry in serious hurts ?
I wish there was a way to post the article.
It was very sad to hear about how these companies are barely able to keep going due to foreign competitors out bidding the jobs.
The once industrial giants of Akron, Ohio are crying to the Feds to intervien so the industry won't be lost.
I'm just glad I got out when that old man told me to....

[msrm]

I'm not surprised about the mold industry
in Akron. I've never worked with molds.
I've grown up working in progressive metal
stamping dies and the like. Our industry,
tool and die, is dying also. I'm the young-
est toolmaker (30) where I work. Most guys
are in their late 50's. A lot of people my age don't see the importance of getting their hands dirty. They feel entitled to a 100k job right of college when the only thing they learned was how to cheat to get the grade or get drunk. I don't think I'll retire in 40 years as a toolmaker because I don't think I'll have a job that I can support myself or my family. I'll probably have to go into computer work that seems the only industry in the U.S. that likely will have a future.
That saddens me deeply.

[msrm]

I'm not surprised about the mold industry
in Akron. I've never worked with molds.
I've grown up working in progressive metal
stamping dies and the like. Our industry,
tool and die, is dying also. I'm the young-
est toolmaker (30) where I work. Most guys
are in their late 50's. A lot of people my age don't see the importance of getting their hands dirty. They feel entitled to a 100k job right of college when the only thing they learned was how to cheat to get the grade or get drunk. I don't think I'll retire in 40 years as a toolmaker because I don't think I'll have a job that I can support myself or my family. I'll probably have to go into computer work that seems the only industry in the U.S. that likely will have a future.
That saddens me deeply.

[Thrud]

Like most things in the industrial age, a shift will occur and we will go on to bigger and better things. No matter what, it still take skilled people to make the machines to make the machines...

Don't worry, charge more.

[kap pullen]

Yep,

We can change more.

We can learn to be porters, and elevator operators in the new service industry.
We can learn to flip burgers at McD.....
or cashier at Walmart.

Walmart, Home Depot, the internet and others have devestated small town America. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses have closed as Walmart increases their business share. Where do you think these small business people work?

Thirty years ago there were any number of good jobs with good benefits for those starting out.

Today the trend is part time jobs (they don't have to pay benefits) and low wages.

Doctors offices, are specially guilty of this. They, of all people, know young people need insurance too. No, I'm not being hard on doctors. I have a doctor in the immediate family.

Government "work" is avalible for certain types of people.

No company can afford to train people because they will quit for a $.25 raise when finished.

The education system has screwed up education so much, college is required at how many ten-thousand dollars a year to
make up where they failed.
Another money making scam?

I don't know the answer, but my son and daughter are having a hard time getting started out.

Don't know how they will achieve the American dream working part time for
peanuts.

Off my soap box.

Kapullen

[Rob Frink]

Here in Columbus, Ohio.....the city school system is getting rid of the "industrial arts" departments to replace them with computer labs. All of the machine tools and equipment are slowly being auctioned off. No more metal casting, machine shop, wood working, auto shop, metal fab, welding....etc.

Sign of the times..?

Rob

[Tuckerfan]

Did anybody here read Jay Leno's article a few years back in Popular Mechanics, where he talked about the decline in machining? One of the things that he talked briefly about was the difficulty in competing with dirt cheap labor, but what really incensed me about the article was when he described the problems he had getting gears made for his Duesenberg. Now Leno claims that he doesn't have anyone who checks his cars out for him and he does most of the work on the cars himself (he's an ex-Mercedes mechanic). So he starts calling around to machine shops asking if they can make the gears that he needs. None of the shops he called would make the gears for him! They all claimed that they no longer had the machinery to make the gears he needed. To me, this is utterly stupid. Jay Leno has money, lots of money, Jay Leno has lots of friends who have lots of money. Were I the owner of a machine shop and Jay Leno to call me and ask me if I could make something for him, it wouldn't matter if I had the machines or not. I'd tell him, "Yes!" and bust my ass to get him the exact part he wanted. Why? Because if I can make it for him, then he'll come back to me when he needs something else. He'll send his friends to me, plus I'll be able to tell potential customers that I've made things for Jay Leno (nothing like a little celebrity endorsement). So I have to say that part of the reason for the decline in the machinist field has to fall on our shoulders. If someone like Jay Leno can't find anyone willing to make something for him, then how is the little guy going to be able to get something made?

I'm still a student machinist, but I've managed to save myself a couple hundred dollars in car parts because I've taken the part to class and made a replacement. How many non-machinists would think about doing that? How many machine shops would do simple repairs on a car part and charge less than what the replacement part would cost? How many machine shops even advertise that they'd be willing to do such a thing? Machinists have let themselves drift out of the public consciousness, when they should be pushing their skills and abilities into the public's eye. Do you know how many times I've had to explain to people what a machinist is? That's crazy! There's a lot of talent out there in machine shops that quietly toils away doing excellent work that few people ever see. What machinists need to do is to make something that everyone can see (You know, like some custom part for your car, or cast a bunch of lawn ornaments.), and let people know that they exist!

[spope14]

The united states fed has supported the bailourt and re-support of banks, savings and loans, Chrysler, oil companies, stocks and bonds companies, and even the helium reserves industry. Yet when it comes to the general "run of the mill" industry, it is willing to sell out its future.

we are fighting our current and our last war out of 1970's and early 80's inventory. It will run out, then where do we buy them...China, Israel, Russia? Our future is mortgaged heavily at this point. It is more than the trade in decline, it our potential freedom.

Fellows gear shaper, Cone Blanchard, J&L lathes and comparators, Bryant Grinders, Joy manufacturing (coal and mineral drilling machinery) have all gone out of biz in my area in the last 15 years alone. These were industry innovators and industry leaders - the founders of the modern indursrial revolution, all gone. partly by their own neglect, but also more in part due to the cheapest machines being produced overseas by dirt cheap labor.

I am protectionist only in these aspect. When it comes to pay the deficit in trade, it comes to our leading the world in the future or even holding our own in innovation, when it comes time to defend ourselves, we will be absolutely unable to due to lack of skills, and the very basic fact of lack of even the essential basic companies to even start the gear-up to do so. our manufacturing "technology" will be gone.

People think the world is to be built on computers, cyberspace, and service providing. All rented money, no new money. these items still require parts, yet we will be getting our parts for service, computers, information, and for servicing of goods from overseas. The money eventually flows "out of the bucket" due to the holes we do not care to see.

Call it the "trickle out economy".

[wmgeorge]

OK Guys... I finally registered so I could post here. Get Both magazines, and I've been machining for a whole six months, but been around machine shops and the like off and on most of my life.

I teach at a Community College, subject not related to machining, but the comment about the students is so correct! Most of my students, just really want the grade, an "A" of course. But come to class?? Maybe 75%, the rest come when they have time. If they miss a day or come in late, because they are hung over I'm EXPECTED to tell them what they missed. Labs? Just tell me what you want Bill, don't make me think!

I have maybe 9-10 out of the 14 that I would hire, the rest would not make it a day in the real world. This is your MTV generation/ modern day high school student. Sad state of affairs. B.G.

[Martin]

In reference to the economy.
Did anyone catch "48 Hours" ?
I think it was 48 Hours......
They were talking about the economy of other countries during the early 80's and how they had to open up to free trade in order to hault inflation.
It went so much "hand in hand" with what is going on now in this country because of free trade.
It's really hard to say what the answer is.
However; I must confess, there is a small side of me that has little pitty for the "owners."
And I know right now that I am going to catch flack from this, but....
They (owners) have brought some of this on them selves.
For years / generations, owners have made a large profit for them selves, leaving the "handle crankers" having to take all the OT they can in order to make ends meet.
Now, times are turning and things are not as they have been for years and that taste just doesn't set well. So if we (owners) go crying to Washington, maybe they can help. But, what can the Gov. do to make things better ?
Close the foreign trade ?
There goes the intrest rates right through the roof. That won't help, because then no one will want to pay that kind of intrest on new tooling / molds.
So is does seem to be a slippery slope with questionable resolve, at best.
Martin with Flame suit on...