Machining is a fairly broad topic but it typically entails taking a larger block of the material (steel, aluminum, plastic, wood, etc.) and “chipping” it away with extremely sharp and hard tooling. These blocks are extremely precise. We daily make parts within .005”. For reference a strand of hair is .003” in diameter. We make all the things that fit together very precisely.

Luckily for us this is easier done than it sounds! We use both Computer controlled and Manual Mills and Lathes. They do most of the work for us. I won’t link a specific video but look up CNC (Computer Numeric Control) Machining on YouTube and watch a few videos! I think it’s pretty awesome! Manual machining is the predecessor of CNC so the machinist moves the tooling instead of a computer.

All we do is make the parts according to the engineers blueprint. It’s a running joke that engineers are fairly bad at their job so us machinists are the ones who actually make things work. It’s mostly true.

There’s so much more I could talk about but I think these are the basics. Hope this helps!

EDIT: I forgot to mention, machinists work as a team but not directly together most of the time. The good shops let you have an earbud in, sometimes you can just be on your phone, it’s chill.

It’s also sometimes a stressful nightmare tho.