Tool and die maker books

Thread Tools Show Printable Version. Any help would be appreciated. Thank You All. If you are actually going to be doing die work, this is a good reference. They gave them out in school when I went. AD Design , ukwildcat05 liked this post. Below is listed a great book I've kept around. The original copyright is Mine is the 3rd edition dated To the uninitiated this might seem like too old to bother with, but there are a million things that were relevant to machining back then that are as true today as they ever were.

Both in design and production of tools and tooling. McGraw Hill Publisher Dave. Originally Posted by Mike Thanks Everyone. I notice that a lot of jobs require an apprenticeship. Is it typical to finish a school program and then go onto an apprenticeship or us that not possible?

Well young man, I would say their title now is machine operator. Once upon a time not so long ago the there were no CNC. NO CAD. And there were things called hand tools such as chisels, hammers, die grinders, files, rifflers etc. The surface plate was not a table to rest your coffee cup, Rather it was where you did a thing called laying out, with lay out dye alias marking blue and a things called height gage, surface gage, dividers, toolmakers button and lot more.

Do you know that the late have a thing called a face plate?. Do you know that there is a hand tool called a spring caliper that a skilled tool and diemaker can use with an external mike to constantly measure a bore to two tenth constantly.

You see young man Technology have taken over and now you no longer makes anything the machine does everything, just load it up right. I had a brilliant mentor to show me, what,where and how.

I am a tool and die maker and I do believe I am not extinct since I am writing this post. Not true, we need them badly as the help wanted signs in my area will testify to.

I think the problem is this is a self fulfilling filling prophecy. The more people who talk about it being a lost trade, The fewer young people want to enter it. It was a wonderful experience for me personally, but it got interrupted by the export of so many manufacturers at first Japan than Mexico, Malaysia and today China and India. I decided to earn an undergraduate degree in engineering to feed my growing family.

Fortunately for me, I have my own shop. But if I wanted to work full-time I could. He is building a high tech center, purchasing an already established tool and die business and will be moving it to the high tech center soon just so that he can make his products. I am a Tool and Die maker with 40 plus years hands on. True it is a challenge to find young folks but it can be done, we just have too approach them a bit different. Yes, I know how too make a great shaper bit.

Us tool and die makers are still alive and well. We still have an apprenticeship program too. And a stepping stone to other career pathways: supervisor, estimator, engineer, tool designer, sales person, etc.

Best wishes too all for a prosperous year. Manufacturing has no one to blame but themselves for the lack of new blood entering the trades. The old men retired if they could, others jumped careers to wherever they could. Shop programs were gutted in high schools, apprenticeship programs were dropped by companies that once offered them.

The jobs being offered by companies are ,IMO, not willing to pay for the experience. Most companies seem to feel that they can teach a lesser paid worker to make tooling, dies, and molds.

And may others too. And hopefully it worked — mine did. In addition I worked a sharpening shop to fix problem tools. But I was never a die maker. The world of manufacturing in general has been stretched in many directions since I started in The field of building the molds and dies required to feed this monster has gone through tremendous changes as well. From what I was told in high school and what I hear from young guys today, I would lay a good share of the blame at the feet of our educators.

Every teacher or principal attended a minimum of four years in college to learn how to hopefully learn how to help a kid learn. Since they went to college, they think that is the best path for everyone. There were quite a few good machinists and tool makers still working their last years in the sixties, that never went beyond the eighth grade.

Our society wants kids to get into debt so deep for an education to prepare them for a career that may not exist in the next ten years that they have a dim future. Back to college again?

It is sad that the many large companies who had great apprenticeship programs have decided to out source their tooling, with some of it going across the big waters to help prepare others for the next war.