i'd imagine they'd be cut in stacks or cut one long gear and then slice gears off like bread, i don't know as i've been out of it for going on twenty years i guess i just figured technology had caught up with and replaced gear hobbers by now
still and all, i don't see operating a gear hobber as a highly skilled position
I’m sure it’s not.
And I get what you’re saying regarding “machine operator” vs. “machinist”.
Hey, I’m as anti union as anyone else here. But I think there’s a knee jerk reaction among a lot of people regarding factories closing over disputes like the one in this story.
I stand sqarely behind the right of the factory owner to move to where ever he wants and do whatever he wants.
But it’s almost as if people here hear the word union and actually root for the guys to lose their jobs. They think every factory worker in a union is making $60k with gold plated bennies, and that’s just not the case.
Some of these people losing their jobs (no doubt to foreigners, ultimately) are people who actually have at least some skill, and actually put at least some effort into it.
I’ve personally been on both sides of the issue, and I think there are more misguided white collar gas bags than blue collar... :)
Slicing them like baloney sounds reasonable. I wish I were still in the industry. Maybe they do that now.
But as recently as a decade ago, I think it was mainly still all hobbers.
And the reason was, as with so much in manufacuring, cost.
Back in the day, production equipment was made to last. As long as you’re willing to fix it occasionally, it can pretty much last forever. So it ends up being cheaper for people to just use what they have unless something comes along that is soooo much faster that it makes their current stuff obsolete.
And that doesn’t happen too often.
I used to work with screw machines (if you kow what those are) and in hte 90’s you could still buy “brand new” 1945 Acmes that have been stored in caves since WW2. Seriously. Still in the cosmoline.
The gvt bought them up after the war to prevent a crash in the machine tool business, and they would auction off lots of them every so often.
They came complete with a little metal plaque saying “Approved for war production”, etc.
Of course the American screw machine manufacturing industry is dead today. And the main reason is the old ones last forever, and the new ones aren’t better enough to justify paying $250k instead of $25k.
That, and smaller order quantities encouraged people to go to CNC lathes, which offer much quicker setup, but much longer cycle times.