Nicholas is a journeyman tool and die maker located in Hartford, WI. His company produces dies for parts used by big-name companies such as Harley Davidson, Remington, and John Deere. Nicholas walks us through the steps to machining various tools and also explains the progression from apprentice to journeyman.
Transcript
>> My name is Nicholas [inaudible]. I'm a journeyman tool and die maker. We make a lot of tin snips. We make gun parts. We make wire cutters. We make motorcycle parts for Harley-Davidson. We make parts for John Deere. We make -- I mean, the list goes on and on: Emerson, Micro Motion. We make a lot of parts. The most common ones you see would be John Deere, Ruger, Remington, and Harley-Davidson. I build -- wax injection molds is what we specialize in. I also build machining fixtures. I build straightening fixtures, gauges, and also various one-off things to keep machines running. Basically anything that I've got a print for, I can build it from material: anything from bronze, aluminum to tool steels to hardened steels. Basically, in our process the first one we use is a 5X CNC machine which we run daily. Second would be a milling machine, manual milling machine such as a Bridgeport. Then we also use a CNC lathe and a surface grinder. After we get the print for the part for the company, we design this mold. We build it mainly out of aluminum. We, as tool makers, receive what we call is a file which is a computer-generated blueprint which we can break down into any different component we are producing. So we take this raw aluminum, start setting up CNC programs, start fitting it together, and the outcome is a mold that can produce into the millions for parts, piece parts. At your apprentice level, you basically are there to learn. And you're expected to pick up as much as possible from each individual. So you're kind of like -- you're at school almost. You've got the same respect for the instructor but as an outcome you want your card so you're learning these processes in greater detail with these tool makers as it goes through the process. And once you're a journeyman, by then you're expected to know how to run every single machine. When we are tool makers, especially at the journeyman level after our apprenticeship, we are expected to know every single step short of designing the part itself. The file is complete when we get it, but there should be no process of that tool that we can't complete solely on ourselves.
Download transcript