Hidden treasure at the U of M...

K

katokoch

Guest
I stepped out of class to find a bathroom today and while wandering around the building I detected the smell of cutting fluid and metal. Lo and behold, directly under the classroom I was just in, was a beautiful sight...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSqa3fJoJ2U

(I took the video with my phone so it's kinda low quality)

A big basement room full of tooling! Mills, lathes, EDMs, saws, drills- everything! Manual to 4-axis CNC controlled. Literally dozens of machines. I had no idea this shop existed- and it is in an old building in the middle of campus! Apparently they handle all of the work needed to complete the big, complicated research projects done on campus.

Since I was curious and metalworking is more interesting than the the history of the Romans invading Spain a few thousand years ago, I started chatting with a couple of the operators and they agreed to give me a hand with a few projects if I brought them in. Sadly, they won't work on wood (the first thing that came to mind was them truing up the tracking surfaces of a couple of my stocks), but they will do simple work on receivers (or "special steel tubes," as we'll refer to them) provided I give them detailed instructions.

I wonder if I can't persuade them to teach me a thing or two about lathes and mills on their off hours... I mean, my tuition is expensive enough for a little more education on the side, right? I'm half joking, but I do see a real opportunity here.
 
No doubt, at one time the taught in that setting. No way would they need that much equipment for just Campus Maintenace Projects.
 
Many high-end pieces of scientific equipment are made by the in-house machine shops at universities. Usually the departments of Chemistry and Physics have these facilities. Probably the engineering departments as well. At Oklahoma State, we also had a wood working shop, a glass shop, and a electronics shop. All the "support shops" were located in the basement were my lab was. The glass shop was one door door from the lab I worked in at grad school, the wood shop was three doors, and the machine shop was at the other end of the hall. They build the state-of-art equipment for the research faculty to prove proof of concept long before big companies will go out on a limb and develop something different. I would drop donuts off once a week or so in the "support shops". I had dozen of devices made throughout my graduate studies in chemistry. Some simple and some complex with near micron XYZ movement. Some folks had to wait months to get something made. I never waited more than a few weeks because I knew their value and treated the guys in the shops with the same respect as the Ph.D.s I studied under.

If you want to learn the trade my suggestion is that you see if they need student workers. They will train you as you go in most shops. When my kids get old enough that I don't have to run them to every sport all year long, I will enroll in the local gunsmith program to learn some mill and lathe skills. I just want to know.... luck, Tim
 
All they can do is say, "no, go away", if they aren't interested.
 
Larry Elliott said:
All they can do is say, "no, go away", if they aren't interested.
Click to expand...

Very true, sir.

Jim, Minnesota. I live just north of campus. I'm the fella that asked you about grip caps and widow's peaks.
 
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