Engineering as a Profession

Engineers have changed, even when I was at sea in the late 70s early 80s

Even back then they couldn't make anything "we don't have any spares" was a common statement

They just plugged bits in, no-one could make anything or use a proper machine tool except a drill

The drill bits were invariably blunt or badly sharpened and "push harder" was the only drilling skill I ever learned in the engine rooms of the 1980s

There was one guy, an engineer from Malta who could use an onboard lathe, I never met him but they would talk about him at smoko from time to time and discuss these mysterious skills he had

Gentlemen,

I have been in Engineering since a child as my Grandfather was a self taught Model Engineer and got us involved with his Steam powered ships and Traction Engine, I enjoyed and hopefully excelled in the fully fitted engineering workshop and Tech Drawing at school, my mother still has some of my made items on show today I then left school and stepped into an Engineering Apprenticeship of four years with Lucas CAV, five at college where I came out with a Full Tech in Mechanical Engineering, from the training dept I went into the Maintenance Engineering Dept, my request, as a Machine tool Fitter where I was taught how to strip and rebuild, repair and maintain all manner of machine tools from Multi Spindle cam operated lathes to precision grinding machines and everything in between, after eight years I became a Reliability engineer, a desk job involved in improving machine life and organising outside companies to refurbish and upgrade our machines particularly from relay logic to PLC's, I then went back to the Works Engineering Dept as one of the Foreman running the Dept where I was sent on courses to gain a knowledge in machine electricals and basic Electronics, the works engineer wanted to make sure that the electricians couldnt pull a fast one over me After sixteen years I decided that I wanted the tools back in my hand and followed my brother into Service engineering and over the years up till now I have installed and serviced all manner of machine tools, done the same thing with car building automated industrial robots and now I work with large industrial walk through washing machines, I've enjoyed every minute because I cant think of anything better than working on a broken machine and walking away knowing that "I" had repaired it/rebuilt it.

Martin P

Edited By martin perman on 23/12/2014 12:46:49

Edited By martin perman on 23/12/2014 12:47:22

Ady1. Totally agree. My ship now has a 'china' clone bridgeport mill and a nice big lathe. When I got there not only had the mill never been used from new (in five years). It had no tooling as nobody knew how to use it. I rescued the milling vice a big 8" vertex clone from the floor of the welding area. The full universal dividing head was stuck in a cupboard with the gears. I have taken some cutting tools on board and made some things to show the Fitter / Welders how do make stuff. M24 stainless steel castle nuts last trip. 8 lobe plastic drive coupling spiders trip before that. First job I had to made a drawbar, 7/16" UNF for the R8 tooling on the mill at my house and take it to the ship. I started in Leith shipyard and a marine fitter apprenticeship. I despair at what will happen at sea when the old guys retire?

I thought the name was familiar, I even went and dug out my SETC group photo before posting. I remember the FM frequency display well. I think we drove up to Reading (?) to a specialist distributor with a PO to get some dual gate RF MOSFETs. In retrospect designing and building a high frequency, high gain amplifier was a pretty tough assignment.

Neither of the electronic projects I undertook worked properly, but the mechanical project did; may be I should have taken the hint!

Regards,

Andrew

No sorry Martin, I was at (then) RNAY Fleetlands the Naval Aircraft Repair Organisation (NARO) subsequently DARA (NOT DERA).

When the curse of fiat money was introduced into society it was the death knell for those whose ' place' and hence ' reward' was determined by their true contribution to the human race.

Imagine if this present world, with all its technology, was run on a barter system ,where ' engineers' might stand !

As it is , morally, we are well ahead of lawyers, politicians, bankers, insurance agents, clergy, etc.

I'm happy with that.

I'm studying Mechanical Engineering at Sheffield Hallam Uni. The cost to complete the course and other courses (part time so 12 hours a week for 5 years) since the government removed the cap on education fees is £30,000, and it goes up every year...

No doubt that'll have an interesting effect.

(That's more than my mum and dads mortgage)

Andrew

Interesting. Sounds as if you were trying to tackle a similar requirement - but using the traditional discrete approach. I was lucky enough to get hold of a partly built ZN1040E 5MHz digital counter / timer / display IC based cct with a 10:1 prescaler (50MHz) and a further Plessey SP631B 700MHz prescaler, from a comms company that had started the project and given up. Got that working up to typically 700MHz or so IIFC. For UHF work I used an OM185 (Phillips) preamplifier which had a three stage design on a thin film hybrid construction. There’s a very similar circuit here (see page 57). For operation below 50MHz I used an NE592 video driver (also Phillips IIRC). After some messing about and laying it out a double sided PCB, it was a useful piece of equipment. This would be the late 70s when I was at school.

Not long after this, I managed to get hold of a development Farnell Instruments MSG800(?) Modular Signal Generator which was the still-born predecessor of the more successful PSG1000 (1GHz) closed loop digital UHF signal generator. I finally got this working from 100kHz to typically 800-850MHz with 1kHz digit resolution. The tricky part was the phase detector – I was able to graft one from the later PSG1000 into it and finally ended up with a very useful piece of kit. Although I was working in the SMPS dept at the time, we shared the same building (and stores!) with the RF boys, which proved handy.The MSG had a variety of modules including AM and FM modulators so you could actually use it as a transmitter when coupled up to a suitable power amp. I used it to drive functional scale model experimental directional aerials at 800MHz, rather than try them out in full scale (these were for HF and VHF). At that frequency, you could simply construct working aerials with copper wire and a soldering iron on the bench top. I mounted them on a motorised revolving base so that the directional gain could be displayed directly on an X-Y scope.

Murray (formerly G8XCN)

Russ B

I am with you. When I went to uni it was essentially free and we got a grant. Some students even finished with a slight surplus (not me obviously!). Nowadays, graduates are expected to be grateful to work for free ("internships"? outrageous). and struggle to pay off massive debts whilst watching house prices drift even further beyond their reach.

What our generation and the one before it has done to the current generation of students and young graduates is simply disgusting. It almost makes me wonder if they will introduce compulsory euthanasia for over 70s when they finally get their heads above water. You couldn't blame them.

I speak as a parent as well.

Hope you can eventually find a fulfilling and challenging career in engineering ahead of you. To get paid (fairly well) to do a job you enjoy is a fantastic outcome and one many people would be happy with. We are lucky in that respect.

Murray

Well done, Russ B, for studying Mechanical Engineering. Stick with it - we need some Mechanical Engineers! ( I speak as one myself, but like Muzzer, I was lucky enough to do it for free, back in the 1970s.) I also did it via a Student Apprenticeship, so I went through the Apprentice School and followed an excellent course of training in all aspects of the Company.

I hope your course is better than the MSc course at Huddersfield seemed to be a couple of years ago. We took on a chap from there with an MSc. He claimed to be proficient in SolidWorks (hadn't a clue) and he didn't even know what a countersunk screw was, for crying out loud.

It has always seemed to me that if you want to make money, go into the parasitic professions. If you're not too fussed about money, but want to have an interesting time working for a living, become an Engineer. I've never regretted my decision to become one!

Employers are always whining about lack of qualified and experienced staff, but they seem to be doing sod all about it themselves - where are the Apprentice training schools today?

Best of luck Russ B.

I did an engineering degree back in the 1960s. The fees were all paid by the county council as was the grant for my living expenses. I wasn't well off but at least I had no debts when I graduated. It's vary sad the way education in the UK has gone and not surprising that so many youngsters look at the ridiculous incomes of the pop stars and footballers and aspire to that sort of life rather than real productive work.

A question Russ; what inspired you to follow that career path?

Russell.

I'd love to have my own small workshop and make a start in machining and prototyping etc, to generate some income, even if it's initially for the modelling community. But having limited engineering knowledge and tooling I wonder where would one start?

Ed.

The only way to make money is to go and work at the Mint.

Ian S C

Muzzer;

I would disagree with your comment 'What our generation and the one before it has done to the current generation of students and young graduates is simply disgusting' ... It's not what we (I'm 66) did in the eighties it was what the government then & now have/are doing, we 'Engineers' could see what would transpire when the larger companies decided to cut back on 'Apprenticeships' & went over to 'YOPS'... YTS schemes, all to save a buck for the bean counters & shareholders, then to discard them after 6 months once the government subsidy ran out. the then government created a spend, spend, policy sold off our gold at rock bottom price, & look what happened, not just here I might add.

Look at what our present government are doing... Austerity, cut to the bone, where we once had a large fleet we now have 19 ships in total, India now has more ships than the UK... The government then to some degree, & now, are career politicians, have never done a days 'work' in their lives & come from the 'old school privileged Eton / Harrow public school background, they make promises, as they all do... leave education & NHS as priority ring fenced systems... then what, the LIb/Dems do a U turn & slap a fee on education.. in the UK.. Scotland still get free education .. free prescriptions etc.... subsidised by the 'British Taxpayer' that's how.. it's not we 'Older generation 'engineers' that have created the present day mire... it was / is the selected privileged few landed gentry, business bosses, Bankers et al ... that are only interested in short term profit., that's who, problem is we elected them, (those that get off their backsides & vote ) foolishly believing what they promise.

... Oooops.. Please excuse the soapbox stand.. got carried away..

George

HI Guy's
my two-pence worth......
I ran my own medium sized repair shop in a certain large northern town.....knowing the local engineering college tutors v/well
I offered to train a couple of young'ns on the hands on side o'things to add to their knowlege base.....
offered to give them some cash as well 4 their time and if they were good they could work when ever they wanted to.....after 6 months of trying nobody came forward.....my tutor friend said he was not surprised but said nothing as he didn't want to offend me......
as I see it, as far as training goes and pretty much life in general "put back in what u get out" ..I've tried....

after a sad occasion in my life I started to travel the world again and worked for an "engineering agency" finishing my last assignment with a Danish wind turbine company....(hands on destructive test manager) .based in the UK.....
the top brass (brass refers to ball's "made of" had a string of letters after their names......but their qualification for the job was in their trouser's, that's because they married into the family.......just sum's up the UK really....

was it the Germans that said " they fight like Lions but led by DONKEY'S".....the e-awes are still at it.....

the firm had the saying "were all in the team" the only time team was used was when they blamed the blokes in overall's for their design failures and when the head honcho's from DK visited our new workshop and the morons
(upper management) forgot to order milk for the coffee (they raided our fridge)......
I say to anyone who wants to get their hands dirty...learn ur trade have a couple of extra years on the job
then LEAVE and travel the world...u might not earn good money but u'll have a lot of fun.....
pretty much all the good engineer's I know have either started their own place, left the UK or took early retirement.....or all three ....hahaha........

HIP HIP "UK" not hooray.......thanks but no thanks.....

on my next move I will find a young'n that wants to learn and he / she can have all my tools and equipment as a gift when I pack it in....
Have a good Christmas and an oily New Year....
clogs........

Did a Student Apprenticeship at ROF Nottingham in the seventies, qualified for a degree at the local polytechnic (Universities now). Was paid full wages (apprentices) and fees paid. At any one time there were 400 apprentices employed there. Not only has that stopped, the factory was bull-dozed to make way for a Homebase, Experian and Coutts bank.....no comment.

Raleigh bikes had the same number of apprentices.....now student accomodation....

Never earned big money but bought a house and raised 2 kids and holiday every year abroard. Would not have changed my life one bit, engineering is the one vocation that I have enjoyed thoroughly. Have never got up in the morning and dreaded the trip to work....

Trevor

Edited By Trevor Wright on 24/12/2014 13:03:37

> ZN1040E

Lovely chip! I have one of those that was originally a part of a project I made when I was about 16. It was a major investment for me!

Now in a frequency generator/counter with one of those sine/square/triangle chips. deeply inaccurate but fine for setting up audio kit

I now have an AVR based DDS waveform synth on the same shelf.

Neil

I remember the TV series in which Sir John Harvey-Jones toured the country helping businesses.

The one program that summed up the the way this country sees engineering was when he asked a group of, I think female, Uni students if they had ever considered engineering.

They all looked absolutely aghast at him, then one of them said "What, Trade?"

He then went on to mention that one of them was from the Yale lock family - Trade in their eyes.

If mothers think this about engineering, then there is no hope.

Geoff - My last post today, so Merry Christmas to all 'Muddle Engineers'  and hopefully not  afterwards

Edited By OuBallie on 24/12/2014 14:07:47

Hmmmm, interesting - I don't know how to answer that and it's got me thinking right back to my childhood. I used to ask questions constantly, why this, why that - I'm amazed my dad didn't tell me to put a sock in it - I've always wanted to know why things worked, not just how they worked, and also as your young lad, could I make it better or change something and it would still work - I remember at the age of about 11 or 12, I got an RC hovercraft. It was good, but I knew I could make it better, I cut away the guarding on the intake fan and glued little bits of plastic to the rubber skirt where it touched the ground to reduce friction - I also used a hot knife to cut off any "decorative" bits and the odd bit of webbing inside the chassis - and it moved like it had never moved before - the batteries would last longer and it was much faster on carpet - success.

I'm not sure when but sooner or later there were questions that couldn't be asked or answers. I knew then how something worked, but then I asked why does it work - perhaps looking at a 2 stroke engine, the old H2 in the garage and I knew certain things were metal, others were aluminium alloys, I was aware of the differences in their properties from experience and general knowledge , these bits had bearings, this that and the other but "why" this, and why "that" - far to many questions - this wasn't the deciding point, there was no epiphany I just grew up this way, natural progression I guess.

The bottom line was nobody was going to answer all these questions, in fact none could be answered without a proper assessment and evaluation, it been "engineered" like that in the first place. Consider it a kind of language - the answer as to why it worked (or didn't!) was written all over it, in the way it had been made and what it was made from. I'd need to know "the language", to understand it fully and make my own evaluations, answer my own questions and make my own "things".

It's not really a career, it started a long time before I even knew of the word.

I think quite often people don't understand what engineering is, or how it affects their day to day, but yet they spend most of their time in a cocoon of engineered objects or objects made or brought to them by engineering be it mechanical, electrical, material engineering etc.

Thanks for asking, that got me thinking.

All the best,

George

I wouldn't really disagree with anything you've said. The bottom line though is that we all had it pretty easy, live in houses that appear to be "worth" a lot more than we paid for them and have allowed the younger generation to be drowned in debt and paid a pittance. In particular, the emergence of this concept of the unpaid graduate "internship" (a US concept) is a fairly recent and contemptible practice. There seems to be talk of apprenticeships again but they were one of the easy cost savings that were made to boost share prices and dividends, so much of the infrastructure and schemes are long gone now.

Many parents are going to have to help out their offspring who would otherwise be unable to afford housing and/or raise families. Which is fine if the parents are in a position to do so.

Harvey-Jones knew that British industry was in decline when he led ICI and was unable to do much to prevent it. Even splitting the different divisions of ICI up and selling many of them off didn't do much more than delay their demise. As you know, neither ICI nor GEC really exist any more. It's a pity that some of the more embarrassing outfits like Rover took so long to vanish but encouraging to see the likes of Jaguar Land Rover doing so well finally.

Murray