The Cost of a True Craftsman

[savageman101]

I'm a 70 yr old retiree that has had 2 jobs over the past 54 years. The last one being 28 years in the machine shop and Sheetmetal fabrication business and hobby. Love taking things apart and making stuff.

I buy/sell and collect Old Model 94 Winchesters. To date I've disassembled and rebuilt 35 to 40 rifles/carbines.

The last one I completed just yesterday was a Winchester 94
30 WCF (30-30) 26" Rifle made in 1915. I'll add pics later.

That rifle sold for $24 to $32 bucks at your local hardware store as a tool in 1915 and the 4 or so craftsman that made this rifle were on average making $687 "A YEAR" each. In current dollars about $18,000 a year. If it sold for $30 retail, then it was manufactured for $8 or less.
Their EDM machine was two guys or gals named Bob and Sarah and both had "Mad" filing skills. They were Happy to have a job and proved it every day in the Quality of their Craftsmanship. Average work week 6-10 hr days.

Times change and unfortunately this Dedication and Quality Craftsmanship has disappeared at "ANY" price.

 

[30-30remchester]

Few people these days appreciate or even understand the hand work done on early products. I collect quality hand-built items. Just the other day I acquired an old pencil sharpener. You know the one, handheld plastic with a razor blade. About an inch by an inch and a half selling for pennies. The one I acquired was machined and turned on a lathe and made from a billet of aluminum. Just try to explain the building of a Winchester model 12 to someone who owns a Mossberg 500. Both work but the model 12 was built by hand from billets of steel. Every part was hand made. Now my question for you, what "rebuilt" are you doing to model 94's? I have collected and delt in this model for decades and seldom do any require anything. Many show zero bluing or finish left and still function perfectly.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

To Savage man. I agree with you. the old 94 is a work of art. I've had several over the years. My present one is a 1941 carbine 30-30. I took my first buck with it in 1953, one shot. Once owned # 312 TD rifle 38-55.

 

[chief38]

I live for TRUE quality and craftsmanship! Just one of the reasons I am willing to spend more to get exactly what I want from the get - go, or I do my own restorations. About the only thing I won't do is re-bluing or re-nickeling.

Also it is just another reason I do all my own work - I have found very very very few craftsmen willing and able to do things up to my spec's - regardless of their prices. I am a very discerning and picky guy who will do what ever it takes to get the results I want, so I know where you are coming from! I applaud you for being discerning and having old fashion work ethics. Not many left with those attributes!

I sometimes laugh (internally of curse) when I hear young people talking of high quality when in fact they are really lookin at a "well dressed pig" and have no idea what real quality is. It isn't really their fault as real quality and craftsmanship has been dead and buried a long time ago. There are a very few exceptions of course.

I work on my own guns, do my own electrical work, plumbing work, carpentry, auto and motorcycle work and pretty much anything else that needs to get done. I spend more time doing things than I should and definitely could not charge enough if doing so professionally - that's why I do it strictly as a hobby and not for a living. I do get the results and satisfaction from doing things in this manner.

 

[Tom S.]

I do not totally agree with the assessment of today's craftsmen. They are still out there but their tools have greatly improved. While they may not have mad filing skills, they do possess mad programing skills to enable their 5 axis CNC machines to manufacture parts that were literally impossible to make 50 years ago.

Additionally, several changes in products are driven by the company owners, not the craftsmen who make the parts. Take time to examine some of the remaining producers who still eschew craftsmanship over bottom line and you will be pleasantly surprised. Look at some of the offerings from Wilson or Les Baer. I would even go so far as to point to some of S&W's Performance Shop creations as shining examples of old world craftsmanship.

Craftsmen are still out there working at their respective trades. It's the tools that have under gone the major changes and I look at that as good thing. 50 years ago, new apprentices in tool and die trades in Germany were handed a square piece of steel and a file and told to make the block of steel round. After they succeeded, they were told to make it square again. OK, that's great to teach a person patience and how to use a file but does it really make them a better craftsman than a person who can use a machine to machine a sphere with a square block inside said sphere in 1/1000th of the time? I think not.



And before I go, a quick statement about the term "craftsman". In the trades, we used the term "Journeyman" to describe said craftsmen. In the 80's, as more women entered the trades, there was concern about the use of the term being outdated. A group of women in the trades were approached about changing the term to "Journeyperson". They overwhelmingly supported leaving the term Journeyman intact with one stating that she had worked hard to earn the title and she'd be really mad if the term was changed.

 

[twodog max]

Got to agree the firearms from the early 1900's were made like fine watches. Model 94's, 92, 1886, the Model 12. Other manufacturers made quality guns too. The Savage 99, Marlin 93, Browning A5, the real one, Remington rolling blocks and many others.
Guns from a different era that is all probability will never see the likes of again.

 

[bob1956]

The cost of 5 axis EDM and Machining center work never mind the cost of the Machinist and his benefits make even custom work in this country cost prohibitive. Unless of course you have access to such equipment at someone else’s cost. I’ve worked in manufacturing m whole life, the average cost of a LIECHTI 5 axis is well over 1M with most approaching 2M. Wires aren’t cheap either.
Granted this type of equipment can produce products only dreamed of in past years. If anyone has an interest in machine tool development, I highly suggest a trip to The American precision museum in Vermont. Interesting enough it all started with the desire to manufacture firearms. The display of early equipment and products produced are second to none in the world. Fitting that the museum is in the center of the precision valley now a ghost town of manufacturing.

 

[chief38]

I do not totally agree with the assessment of today's craftsmen. They are still out there but their tools have greatly improved. While they may not have mad filing skills, they do possess mad programing skills to enable their 5 axis CNC machines to manufacture parts that were literally impossible to make 50 years ago.

Additionally, several changes in products are driven by the company owners, not the craftsmen who make the parts. Take time to examine some of the remaining producers who still eschew craftsmanship over bottom line and you will be pleasantly surprised. Look at some of the offerings from Wilson or Les Baer. I would even go so far as to point to some of S&W's Performance Shop creations as shining examples of old world craftsmanship.

Craftsmen are still out there working at their respective trades. It's the tools that have under gone the major changes and I look at that as good thing. 50 years ago, new apprentices in tool and die trades in Germany were handed a square piece of steel and a file and told to make the block of steel round. After they succeeded, they were told to make it square again. OK, that's great to teach a person patience and how to use a file but does it really make them a better craftsman than a person who can use a machine to machine a sphere with a square block inside said sphere in 1/1000th of the time? I think not.

View attachment 603825 View attachment 603826 View attachment 603827

And before I go, a quick statement about the term "craftsman". In the trades, we used the term "Journeyman" to describe said craftsmen. In the 80's, as more women entered the trades, there was concern about the use of the term being outdated. A group of women in the trades were approached about changing the term to "Journeyperson". They overwhelmingly supported leaving the term Journeyman intact with one stating that she had worked hard to earn the title and she'd be really mad if the term was changed.

First off, I do respect the view you have based your opinion on and I do see merit there. That said, and at least as firearms are concerned, fitting, finishes, alignment, tolerances and certainly overall QC is at an all time low when talking about older models still in production in comparison to earlier made versions. With all the modern CNC machinery being used, quality is not what it used to be - at least from my point of view.

Secondly, there are very few new young Craftsmen being trained by the "old timers" any longer since most of the "old timers" have long since retired. So training and what quality really is (or what it should be) has gotten sort of down-graded I believe.

Just my opinion - others may disagree - and it's their right too.

 

[Protocall_Design]

I started out in the tool & die trade in 1975 when everything was still mechanical, not all that different from 1920. All we had were dials on the machines and dial indicators for finer graduations. If you wanted to mill an arc or a circle, you had to set up a rotary table and get the part positioned and clamped down with the center of the arc exactly over the center of the RT. Every cut was an individual setup. Every cut had to be matched or blended with all the previous ones. Every turn of the handwheel was an opportunity to scrap the part by turning it a little bit the wrong way, or a little bit too far. You had to maintain a high level of concentration at all times to make a good part and to keep out of the machinery.

Now we have Digital Read Outs (DRO) on everything that gives you exact measurements to parts of a thousandth, and CNC machines that can do angles and contours effortlessly. It would take a book to chronicle all the improvements in processes and machinery in the last 50 years. I'm still doing all of this on a daily basis and have a modest amount of the newer equipment. All the T&D guys I worked with in the past have long since retired or died. Not many of the younger people want to learn the trade. It's too much like work.

I'm still doing quality work, mostly prototypes of new inventions and industrial maintenance and repair. As a competitive S&W revolver shooter, I make some aftermarket parts that include a line of Bianchi Cup accessories and front and rear sights.

Also, a new patent pending K,L,&N frame hammer that makes the trigger pull get lighter as you pull it back. The hammers are CNC machined from a block of A2 tool steel, heat treated and surface ground to thickness, laser engraved and assembled, then made into a kit. All done by me, except for the laser engraving.

There are videos of this on the RevUpAction.com website.

There is still quality work being done, you just have to look harder to find it now.

 

[MRB1]

The definition of quality and craftsmanship has changed over the years. Both are now dictated by profit and shareholder value. Also, quality control is now looked at as overhead.

 

[2152hq]

I am firmly planted in the old(er) ways of the trade.
I like the hand work and the styles and ways of the trade as it was done pre-WW2 and back.
I have no problem with modernization.
But what passes for first class these days has me very often shaking my head.

Extremely high labor costs are the main reason for the loss of the skilled 'hand crafted' item and the craftsman/person that needs to go with that.
In the 1800's and up to WW2, labor was cheap.


re: The machined out shapes within a shape,,I have some pics somewhere in an Engraving book or magazine article showing some decorative steel work done in Germany a few centurys ago. It is primarily on knife pommels IIRC where figures are carved inside a 'cage' of decoration. This entirely from the solid steel pommel to start with.
I'll see if I can locate them in the stack of stuff.

 

[Onomea]

Speaking of the craftsmanship of earlier times, I have posted this before on the Winchester Model 71. I especially like this passage:

...I would like to say that the mid-1930's were a wonderful time to produce a supreme rifle. The factory machining capacities were at an advanced state (relative to 20 years before), there was better steel technology, and there was a work force skilled in combining state-of-the-art machinery with semi-hand work. This is a little off point, but you can also see the same thing with classic cars. The 1930's were the brief moment of the truly brilliant "big" Packards, the Model 90 Cadillacs, the Phantom III Rolls-Royces, etc. Machinery & craftsmanship existed, really for a tragically brief time, in a marvelous equipoise....

Winchester 71 Info

 

[Yaworski]

50 years ago, new apprentices in tool and die trades in Germany were handed a square piece of steel and a file and told to make the block of steel round.

They still do that. The belief is that's how you get a feel for the metal.

does it really make them a better craftsman than a person who can use a machine to machine a sphere with a square block inside said sphere in 1/1000th of the time?

In the truest sense of the word, yes. I used to sell a panel carving machine that took a file on an SD card and would carve intricate wooden panels. I ran it for demos by pressing the GO button. Could I carve a panel with mallet and chisel? Only in my dreams where I'm also married to Claudia Schiffer.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My youngest son does some wood working on the side. He recently built a replacement staircase for 240-year-old home. He built it as a free-standing unit, so it could be slipped in place with a minimum of traffic disruption. The risers are dove-tailed into the stringers. When I was inspecting it, I didn't mention the dove-tails. I kind of hurt his feelings. He ask if I noticed the dove-tails? I said what dove-tails? They are so tight I couldn't find a joint line and the wood color matched so well that the grain pattern was the only give a way!

He sure didn't learn that from me! He has a Industrial Design degree from an art college! And a few years working in the shop of a real master craftsman! He obviously has a gift, but he sat under good teachers. Most young people can't stand the idea that they don't already know everything.

Many great tradesmen get tired of the slack-jawed kids they are assigned as helpers and students and have given up on the next couple of generations.

Ivan