I keep judging my shop\u2019s quality. I consider, \u201cIs this as professional as it should be? What are the right tools for me?\u201d I feel it is so much a personal decision; I will never see or believe an answer from anywhere but within my own desires. If I am doing machining just for the challenge and personal pleasure to myself, no one else can tell me what\u2019s right for me. One thing a personal machine shop is… is that it is personal. So be it… it is then a personal machine shop.<\/p>\n
Is there a difference between a hobbyist\u2019s machine shop and a personal machine shop? I think it is mostly just a difference in title, but that little change in thought from hobby to personal does make some subtle change in impression. To me it removes the vision of play and non serious application of time. It sounds a bit more \u201cprofessional\u201d. Maybe even to the imagined ability of producing professional grade work. The roles and actions have not changed at all. It is just word crafting to create subtle changes in how some people relate words to meaning. It is the basis of how \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d works.\u00a0 What\u2019s the difference between garbage man and sanitary engineer?<\/p>\n
I have never had a hobby where quality wasn’t important. Many hobbyists find a way to maintain the very highest standards and output from the skills and equipment they have and can afford. Hobby machinists for example, can generally produce with a far better standard than is needed for professional work. Even with \u201chobbyist\u201d machines.<\/p>\n
I feel describing my shop as a \u201cpersonal machine shop\u201d can be an image enhancement to the non hobby person. The same reason the personal computer (PC) is now seen as a professional tool. The first PC\u2019s were all hobbyist toys. I was one of those very early hobbyists trying to figure out how I could answer the question, \u201cSo what can it do… besides blink the LED lights?\u201d It was all about the bits and bytes back then. I was thrilled but it seemed few other folks understood. To them personal computers were, \u201cjust a hobby\u201d to be dismissed as something trivial, a plaything.\u00a0 Far little did they understand back then… I was helping change the world!<\/p>\n
I am happy with the shop I have. My self-examination answer keeps coming back, \u201cThis shop IS just perfect for me. It fits my personal needs.\u201d So maybe I will occasionally use the term \u201cPersonal Machine Shop\u201d even though it sounds a bit snooty. So what, it\u2019s all just a part of the fun. Perhaps it will help remove some doubt that my hobby isn’t something to be considered serious business. I\u2019ll actually be poking fun at the non-enthusiast snoot who just doesn’t understand he or she is being catered to…\u00a0 The rest of you can call it a hobbyist\u2019s machine Shop.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I keep judging my shop\u2019s quality. I consider, \u201cIs this as professional as it should be? What are the right tools for me?\u201d I feel it is so much a personal decision; I will never see or believe an answer from anywhere but within my own desires. If I am doing machining just for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77778,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,6],"tags":[69,17,21,24,63,65],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-always-random","category-musing","tag-change","tag-computer","tag-hobby","tag-machine","tag-machinist","tag-tool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/77778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thehobbyistmachineshop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}