I’m seriously thinking about learning CNC machining. After 20 years in IT I’m ready for a change.
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I am in IT as well, and have always had an admiration for skilled machinists. I used to work in aerospace in a factory. That would be my second career if I ever have one.
I went into the industrial automation/ process control long ago. Much more interesting when you start dealing with the material balance in a refinery. It’s a multi discipline field.
“I’m seriously thinking about learning CNC machining.”
That thought has hit me also. If the HPA goes through, there is going to be good money building firearm suppressors, at least until the market saturates.
At this point, I am just a hack machinist running 70+ year old machines.
I’ve been in IT about 15 or so and at times I would do a lot of what the on-site machinist does. Every so often I pick up a little from him.
If I had a few G’s free, I’d take the tech college crash course on CNC or welding.
Did it in the early '70s and loved it. Then joined the AF and as technology evolved, got into IT...the nice thing about CNC is that if you have any mechanical aptitude at all, you can be trained form next to zero to being productive in pretty short order - if you work the machines. Programming isn't that tough either - only limited speed/feed/direction combos so if the tables are accurate, a fine finished product is a sure thing. Of course, we had a programmer that bore the moniker of "Crash Craddock" as he often had trouble visualizing things and was wont to have a tool block return to home by going through a chuck or piece - was always interesting trying out one of his programs for the first time.
Programming might get boring but would be an easy way to earn a living and some of us just enjoy turning out physical products to fine specs.