From: gary_preckshot@lccmail.ocf.llnl.gov (gary preckshot)
Newsgroups: trial.rec.metalworking
Subject: Re: Crafts Cooties
Date: 6 Nov 92 22:41:08 GMT
Distribution: trial,world
Organization: LLNL

In article <Bx88zE.Czu@world.std.com>, slefton@world.std.com (Scott A Lefton) writes:
> 
> Gary, I doubt that the Webster definition matters much to anyone else in
> the metalworking group but you.

Although there have been posts supporting what I have said, I haven't had
the gall to suggest that I know what percentage of this group either
favors or does not favor the name rec.crafts.metalworking.

>  Most of the craftspeople that I know are
> very educated,  and make a living ranging from decent to excellent from
> their work.  Some cross the line between artist and craftsperson, and many
> work well in more than one medium.

This is irrelevant because every group of people includes those who go
beyond the limitations of the group.  Because you happen to know a few
doesn't change the meaning of the word "craftsman".  And it is very pertinent to
doing machining on your own, since in most cases machinists carry out
the designs of persons with higher competence.  It's not very important with
electric guitars, for instance, but a person making (incompetently) a
trailer hitch can kill someone else.  The daughter of a friend of mine plus
her two children was killed when a homemade horsetrailer came adrift and
crossed into their lane.  Likewise, the ASME boiler code came about because
craftsman were building locomotives and killing themselves and others by
boiler explosions.  You need to be more than a craftsman if you undertake
to build, by machining or other metalworking process, certain potentially
unsafe things.  And as one scale model locomotive type found out, beautifully
crafted scale live-steam locomotives freeze up when they get hot if they
are built by an artist rather than an engineer.  I understand he was rather
disappointed.

>  On a casual search of the newsgroups,
> I suspect that "crafts" would be a more likely starting point than "metal".
> Your information about the questionable benefits of hierarchical depths 
> 2 to 4 certainly doesn't point to any detriment here.
> 

I think "casual" describes this.  What I said was that there was no supported
justification for the insistance on hierarchy.  Consequently, the drive
for hierarchy is backed by mere opinion.  Rather than casual surveys, the
professionals that wrote the papers designed experiments to test the
"common" wisdom about hierarchies.  Their findings were surprisingly
inconclusive given the common assumption about how good hierarchies are.


> I have also hired people to do hand labor and work as machinists.  From 
> ongoing experience with the New England employment scene, few if any of
> the unemployed folks I've interviewed for jobs would define themselves
> as a craftsperson right off the bat.  The folks laid off from the ship 
> or automotive industries wouldn't.  
>

Your ad is honest and instructive.  You are looking for craftspeople and the
things that interest you are manual skills with certain machines.  This is
what unions sell employers and this is why craftsmen get laid off.  Their
machines and processes become obsolete and having no higher competence, so do
they.
 
> As for not associating with fiber artists, etc., are you at all aware
> of the "woven metal" work done by some weavers who are also metalsmiths?
> I've found that contact with crafts that I'm not "into" can still
> enrich my own work.
> 
> Keep an open mind.
> 

I do indeed have an open mind but not a loose one.  I enjoy the postings of
blacksmiths, jewelry makers, and others, but this doesn't mean that I accept
pronouncements by someone who does something by rote without some critical
discrimination.  If you too have an open mind, then may I suggest you think
beyond your own life experience and imagine a wider venue.  This might
include people like me who are metalworkers and more than craftsman.  Metal
working has gone beyond craft in many of its aspects, which are now
scientific and engineering disciplines.  And some of us find pursuing these
ends to be recreation.

Gary
Newsgroups: trial.rec.metalworking