SteveHGraham wrote:When I studied physics, I studied under people who were excellent physicists. A grad student is not unlikely to find himself studying under a Nobelist. And in physics, a Nobel actually means something. It's not like the political Nobels certain hacks have received.
When I studied law, nearly all of my professors were people who had done little or no legal work, and who could not find their way to the courthouse. If you hired them to defend you on a parking violation, you might get the death penalty. Hopeless incompetents. One purpose the law school served was to provide an asylum where these ineffective people could earn a living and avoid taking charity. Although considering their high salaries and nanny benefits, I guess "charity" is a fitting term for their situations.
By and large, the law professors were much more arrogant.
Funny how that works.
I agree in re the issue of arrogance in law school professors. In my case, attending the night section of a law school, most of my professors were actually working lawyers - DDA's, Partners, Family Law solos, etc. so they had sort of a ground level approach which was helpful, albeit served with an occasional dose of arrogance. LOL.
I think that if a person has great interest and applies himself, good machining practices can be learned and carried out successfully. It helps to have a mentor, which thankfully, I've had. It can be done otherwise, however, if a person has the will.
So much for generalizations. LOL.
By the way, to get back on the topic of your thread. I got the Kurt vise yesterday and I can't say enough about the quality and precision of the unit. To my great pleasure, my friend brought over a spare Kurt swivel for it that needed only a good bead blasting and some paint. You can't make up a friend like that.
For my part in repayment, he knows that he's free to come over whenever he wants and use my bead blaster, the metric side of my Enco lathe. He has, inter alia, two Monarchs, one big and one small that only do U.S. threads. (He usually does his metric on his two CNC centers but occasionally he has a special need), my TIG welder (He has one but mine is larger), my bead blaster (he seldom works on anything dirty since he's doing new metal but occasionally he does repairs for clients on older equipment) and anything else I have. He also gets good conversation and coffee and an occasional free legal tip.
That's how knowledge is transferred.
Regards.