It’s been two months since Billy joined us as an apprentice, so we thought it was the perfect time to catch up and share how he’s getting on!
What have you been doing at college?
One day a week, my class and I do practice tasks, making minor modifications. The tasks involve turning on the manual lathe to reduce the size of materials and carry out boring operations.
I also completed a task at Elder using mild steel, machining a component to be parallel with a tolerance of 0.25mm on a manual mill.
What have you been doing at Elder Engineering?
I have been learning to programme and create tool paths on the router, converting drawings to CAD using ArtCAM and Cut2D, which are programmes I have not used before.
The router machines around 90% of polymer materials, some of the polymers I am now machining are:
- • Acrylic
- • PVC
- • Glass Filled Laminates (Tufnol)
- • Polyethene and UHMW PE
- • Nylon
When machining nylon, I had not added coolant – this caused the material to melt due to the heat and friction. What did I learn from this? Although it’s not always necessary to use coolant with this material, it can cause heat build up and cause the edges to melt.
We’re incredibly proud to support young talent like Billy – sharing our experience and knowledge is one of the most valuable things we can do.
