What Skills Do You Need to be a Custom Machinist?

A custom machinist is someone who works with metals to create parts and wholesale machines to the clients specifics and it falls within the metalwork bracket. This is a great career if you have a passion for working with metal and in engineering and as with most careers there is a certain skill set which you will need to have in order to make this career a success. Naturally you will have to have a certain level of skill when it comes to working with both metals and moving parts, and beyond that these are some of the skills which will be required.

Attention to Detail

Paying attention to the detail is everything in this position and the difference of a single millimeter is the difference between a machine working and a machine not working. Ultimately one must be a perfectionist to succeed in this role and ensure that every single item which is produced, be it a bolt or a steel plate, is to the exact dimensions as has been requested.

Critical Thinking

Sometimes things just don’t work and in order to get to the bottom of the issue critical  thinking is required. This can be a bothersome problem and it may involve completely taking something apart and testing each part individually in order to find out why something isn’t operating as it should be. Critical thinking is certainly a key skill within machinist.

Customer Service

Although it may not seem like it, and there is a possibility that you actually won’t interact with the customer directly, creating custom pieces is all about customer service, because you are making a product which is to their exact specifics.

Open Minded

Things are often set in stone in this industry regarding how things are done, but it is important that you are also able to have an open mind as to what is possible. If a customer comes in with a certain problem, you need to be open minded and creative in your thinking to help them to resolve it. This may sometimes require methods which are not exactly traditional but it will be your job as a custom machine operator to be able to come up with something that will help, and to show that creativity.

Math Skills

At the foundation of everything that you do will be an ability to use math in your work and that is why this is something which must come naturally to you or something which you have worked extremely hard on. Dimensions and measurements is central to everything that you are going to be doing and that is why you will not survive for very long if you are not able to apply the math to the problem which you have in front of you .

So do you think that you have the skills to be a machinist? Working on custom pieces? What skills are you lacking and need to work on?