If you have a couple of hrs spare

Amazing program of taking an apprentice to the top floor. I used to work with a lot of this equipment. Siemens PLC controls & pneumatics. This is another level.

Steve.

German engineering

got motion sickness watching the mill towards the end! what a machine!

I used to work with a lot of this equipment. Siemens PLC controls

Have you got over that yet ? I loathe working with Siemens automation equipment.

Nigel B.

I saw the typical, expensive 'over' engineering German clip from the above link. I'd hate to find the cost of working with that company!!! Impressive yes but how much would that cost? I agree that the apprentice school was great.

Anyway, the next video was a US chap grinding single point HSS tools - that really was an excellent clip for some of the newcomers to the hobby.

Phil H

The generalisation in your subtitle makes me doubt you know what you're saying, so I'll pass on spending a couple of hours on this rather than in my workshop.

+1 on Mick B1's comments.

In Industry over 30 years I have seen mechanical work of many types from many countries - some was great, some was rubbish. Seen genius ideas from all countries, seen totally idiotic ideas from all countries. To say one country is "always the best " is inaccurate and xenophobic.

An idiot can produce rubbish from the best equipment.

A good engineer can make precision parts on an old, worn machine.

Skill is what counts in the end.

I've seen a chap take pictures with the lens cap on his Leica IIIf, and superb work from a Zenith B

Howard

Before I retired we moved over to Alan Bradley & was so much easier to work with. Regards

Steve.

Looks like I touched a few nerves. Probably listened to my dad so much when younger. Having said. Most of the machinery we installed for Blue chip companies, usually food, were made either in Germany or Italy. Very few came from the UK. Odd ones from a company called Gainsborough craftsmen & Sewtech automation of Dewsbury.

It was just the huge operation that got me. What the hell happened to British engineering. No good saying it was the cheap Chinese that ruined it ,when there are companies like that around. All we seem to have in this country is large distribution networks & huge car parks full of new cars & vans.

Steve.

Seen quite a few Hermle's in action, Amazing machines. Rock solid and incredibly reliable. The cost though

Accountants and salesmen got into all the senior management positions and shut it down.

I went into the BSA doing the phones in 69. It was a bit like a glacier dying slowly with no one doing much.

Appearances are deceptive! British industry is worth as much today as it ever was. It's just moved on, mostly up-market. It doesn't make cheap or basic items any more because they're highly competitive and not very profitable. The best place in the world to manufacture ordinary items is wherever it happens to be cheapest at the moment - which changes over time. Much more value in making high-end products that people pay big money for - MRI Scanners rather than Food Mixers.

Although the value produced by British Industry is high, it no longer employs most of the working population - millions of jobs have gone, many of them well-paid and fulfilling. Unfortunately many worked for financial basket cases; out-dated plant making over-priced products, under-invested, resistant to change, poorly managed, poor labour relationships, spanish practices and persistent low productivity. Too many firms subsidised by the taxpayer. When the crunch came it was extremely painful, and - in my opinion - not well managed. Many a promising baby was chucked out with the bathwater.

Most of the obvious signs of industry have gone - chimneys, big factories, textile mills, mines, docks, steelworks, shipbuilding and heavy chemicals. What's left is far more low key - smallish buildings packed full of CNC, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, computing, electronics and CAD/CAM, often tucked discretely away on bland industrial estates.

The decline in industrial jobs was more than counter-balanced by growth in the service sector. Horny-handed practical men look down on these jobs, hairdressers! But services generate about 3 times more wealth than smoke-stack industry ever did. They're the ones paying my pension, not the blokes who balked at metrication. Actually, it doesn't matter what job people do as long as someone else gets value from it. Any job that pays is good, jobs that don't provide value aren't worth keeping. But chucking people on the scrapheap is bad too - they need to be supported sympathetically at a very difficult time, change is rarely their fault.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 06/03/2020 21:51:36

Funny you should say that. I was recently at a farm friends house. He employs 90% Polish workers. I asked why is there not enough British workers. His reply was yes there are loads of them. Most on the Dole. They will not work. The Polish workers are really good grafters. Enough said.

Steve.

Did you ask how much he pays them? Thought not. 🙄

He pays £10.50 per hr + accommodation & meals. Train fares to & from departures. But not the flights etc. 3 week contracts. No medical or other fees. Regards. P.S It is nice of you to defend British workers that cannot get out of bed because they can just go & sign on.

Steve.

Steve.

Well done Stevie for squaring outstanding German excellence with decent treatment of a Polish workforce. There've been times when that wasn't done.

More complicated than that Steve.

The main reason unemployed Brits don't take low paid work is doing so immediately reduces their benefits. In effect they work for nothing. Short term work also generates a lot of bureaucratic hassle with the DWP, including the strong possibility than benefits won't resume smoothly when the paid job is over. No joke when families have no money for a month or two while the system resets.

See Welfare Trap.

It's a difficult problem: so far no government has come up with a good answer. Simply cutting welfare and demanding 'lazy' people sort their act out doesn't work. Not only is it based on the false premise that everyone on the dole is lazy, it fails to consider how people will respond. Rather than rushing to low-paid productive work, too many take to better paying opportunities like crime and the black economy. And solutions that create a resentful anti-social underclass are more trouble than they're worth.

Sure it's broken, but neither the Daily Mail or Guardian have an answer. What we have is an uneasy compromise that gives the unemployed a solid logical reason for not working on the farm, while leaving them trapped in poverty. Not having a job is very damaging to the individuals feeling of self-worth, completely demoralising. Ask anyone who has been made redundant, or gone bust in business.

Dave

The main reason unemployed Brits don't take low paid work is doing so immediately reduces their benefits. In effect they work for nothing. Short term work also generates a lot of bureaucratic hassle with the DWP, including the strong possibility than benefits won't resume smoothly when the paid job is over.

If you look furrther into the current arrangements, Dave, you will find that your description is inaccurate. The benefits system has changed to be more responsive to changed working patterns.

Nigel B.