Model Engineers Handbook

Freemasonry is not a secret society, it is a society with secrets, and no I am not a member.

We can  leave it up to the said conspiracy theorists to decide if that means all of their activities or just some.

Edited By Hopper on 02/03/2022 12:41:34

I think Baz's definition is closer as many of the activities are well publicised and their charitable work, though not shouted about runs into millions - but within all of that there are some things that are private to members of the organisation, so a society with secrets makes sense to me

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My father was a Freemason and my boss of many years, they are two men who I have the greatest of respect for as decent honest men. After my mother was widowed the lodge almoner kept in regular touch and although she was never in need of any assistance from them they are always there for you. Masons being ordinary people are subject to the same failings we all have. I remember by boss who was responsible for interviewing prospective candidates for the electrical department telling me a candidate had signalled his membership to him which in that situation is forbidden, as you are not to use freemasonry to your personal advantage, it did not go well for him as he got an extra rigorous interview and was not offered a job.

Mike

When I worked for my PhD at the Laboratory of Metallurgy of the Technical University of Delft in the late seventies there was a “Faculty Students Society” named “Tubal-Kaïn”, so named after the first (black)smith on earth (Genesis 4.22).

Edited By Jouke van der Veen on 02/03/2022 17:45:26

This would be equivalent to canvassing which job adverts used to warn would disqualify.

Lyle Peterson is a retired high school shop teacher. I don't think his expertise extends beyond what was required for that job.

I know him only through his many excellent YouTube videos; that at least makes him more than you suggest.

I use to enjoy Lyle Peterson until he started to only put up "Look what I brought at auction" I am sure that half of what he buys he already has in the workshop. He use to do some good videos on how to make something or other but no longer.

A lot of high school shop teachers were journeymen machinists, toolmakers etc before becoming teachers. Clickspring, the YouTube clock maker and Antithykera (sp?) guru is a teacher at our local tech college. I think the teaching gig allows guys to develop their skills beyond what the constraints of industry often allow. So many engineering jobs utilise only a tiny bit of what apprentices learn at tech college because the focus is always on "get it done" and rush rush rush, or specialise in doing one narrow thing over and over.

As the shop teacher though, you are your own boss and have the time and equipment to explore new and better ways of doing things. One of the best tradesmen I ever came across was the guy who ran the apprentice training centre at the car factory where I served my time. He not only had a fully equipped training machine shop at his disposal, he had 30 little minions to do his bidding. We pretty much made a whole vintage motorcycle from scratch for him after he found an old rusted 1910 engine in a paddock. Such joys were long gone once we got out into the factory at the end of the first year. But he just kept on doing it, year after year after year, getting better and better.

All of the workshop teachers at the school I went to were former Chatham Dockyard apprentices and workers. At least one of them was an old boy too, which was what the school was created for.

Teaching is a massively under rated skill, especially by those who have never tried it. And teaching the basics of any subject doesn't necessarily require the teacher to be at a Nobel Prize level; being able to competently demonstrate and explain concepts new to their pupils is far more important.

Hopper:

Thank you for your insights and congratulations on living within the aura of Clickspring!

LP seems to have a rather dour view of his former students but I would imagine that some at least responded to his teaching. What could be more satisfying than successfully passing on your knowledge to the younger generation?

Memories of night school at Wandsworth. One evening I thanked the tutor for the amount of time that he was giving me. His response was illuminating. He said that after days of supervising kids who often didn´t want to even be there and that he needed eyes in the back of his head to stop them doing dangerous things, it was a pleasure to teach people who did want to be there, listened to what he said and did it !

I came here to comment on Geo. H. Thomas's The Model Engineer's Workshop, but have stayed to thank the contributors for the very measured discussions of freeemasonry and school-teaching.

My late father was a freemason (as were my grandfather, uncle and brother) and for many decades a church elder. He would not have stayed five minutes in an organisation which was corrupt or questionable.

I started out as a power station apprentice and ended as a science and technology teacher, and became very disillusioned by the general public's jaundiced view of teaching, something they had never done and didn't really understand. It was only the interaction with the kids that kept me at it for so many years. The teachers I really admire are those who teach Maths, or History, or RE with no practical input.

Anyway, back to Thomas's book: It's full of really valuable information based on sound thinking and practical experience. However, having its origins in a series of magazine articles, there are lots of vegetables and gravy along with the meat. That's not a criticism because I learned when I was a technical author (yes, I've been about a bit) that one writes according to the needs of one's readership. When I write the occasional magazine article I put in vegetables and gravy, and a bit of seasoning too.

When I want to tackle one of his projects (or indeed, any other magazine-based project) I scan and convert the original and boil it down to what I need. It not only gives me a more useable text, but aids my understanding too.

George

I think jubilation owes its roots to the ancient Jewish notion of a grand piss-up every 50 years (called a Jubilee). But tubilation would certainly appeal when applied to a maker of bicycles, bed-frames, Wellington bombers, and - yes indeed - steam boilers.

Cheers, Tim

All the teachers at my school were degree men from the best universities except for our metalwork teacher whose entry in the school list was simply his name. He was an inspirational teacher and was probably alone in actually having worked outside of the education system. At tech we had a lecturer who had worked in industry and then taken a post as lecturer at the tech college, he was far and away one of the most interesting teachers of electronics I have encountered as relating what you are learning to the real world gives the knowledge you are trying to absorb a purpose. I always found it amazing when something I had learned cropped up in a real job and sometimes in the most unexpected places, the saturable reactor turning up in a tig welder was a surprise and it took a while for the penny to drop as the sketchy drawing and pamphlet that was the manual did not remotely describe the machine. Much of what I have learned has eventually been useful but some of it just never has, I am not dead yet so there is still time.

Mike