> DBCustom
Chuckle. Hey, I have no objection to “craftsman” one-off creations — that’s art, like you do.
For mass production work, well, that’s where the basic, lowest level skill is turning out interchangeable parts reliably.
Burnsd’s new here, and as you’ve noticed, new folks come in and make the same observations Bugsy36 and the rest of the creative team have heard all too often.
We don’t want to wear down our treasured creative folks, as they’ve done wonders with this light.
They also ended up being teachers about how to do QA and QC. Above and beyond the call. Awesome.
Just saying, this is interesting — Burnsd’s link tells us when interchangeable parts were invented in China (hey, I didn’t know that — did they over there?) Bronze crossbow parts, field-exchangeable. Wow.
What a story that would be if anyone has written it up. And the idea is being reinvented, now, one little shop at a time.
So I applaud everyone for accepting that this round sunk below the threshold for interchangeable parts — and even the cheapest work, maybe especially the cheapest machine tool work — should rise above that threshold.
I want their new trainee machine tool operators — the ones who get assigned to cheap flashlight pieces — to raise the lowest level of skill, and keep improving — so they can make more money, get better jobs, and make things that are much more important than flashlights. Aircraft. Fission plants. Bridges. Trains. Not fall down.
But as I keep saying, I’ve said too much. Again. mmmmmmpfh