Boots has been in some way or shape involved with every cut rifle barrelmaker alive today. He, like most of us doesn't believe in keeping the knowledge of the dark art to ourselves, if there is genuine ability to be created from the curiosity of the person asking the questions. It's not an overnight read a book or watch a youtube video and you're ready to go out and be the next barrelmaker. I was brought up more in the Atkinson methodology, mostly because that's where most of the cut rifler knowledge base and procedures I'd learned from were learned on his former machines I was running at the time, so it continued to pass down the chain thru the decades as I was brought in. It was later during my transition and resulting tenure in Scotland that Boots and I struck a solid chord. Both just wanting to continue to learn more. He's a country boy and I'm a country boy, so most of our written discussions revolved around milking cows or plowing fields. Then out of nowhere a snippet, might be a paragraph or even just 2 or 3 words that in hindsight he was probably just testing whether I was thinking and not just doing. As long as I was thinking, we kept the back and forth up as much as we could.
So yes, I've brought those into the fold here, and in Scotland, weeded out the ones who do and don't think. Most of the thinkers continue either in the craft or at least within the industry. But there is a big difference coming from custom barrel making base to our small scale production type workflow to feed the thinkers enough. Gotta be a doer too, it's all about reps and patience of watching millions of strokes on those rifling machines that keeps food on the table. Takes a different breed I guess, but indeed there is too much work for me here to oversee the department and have time to grow and innovate without having help on the lines operating the machines and gaining time learning. Some things just aren't on the agenda to learn until they come up. Sort of like when I interview and see 15-25 yrs experience doing this or that, my first question isn't how good of a job can you do. It's usually what was your biggest screwup in that 15yrs doing this job, and how did you learn from it? Because that's the experience you need for most machining. Not what's on page 334 in the programming book, we are about to reprogram you anyway. But in the troubleshooting chapter someone tore out of the book and had to write your own. Haha. Farmkid, was used to that. But know that I take oversight very seriously, and ensure the staff is of equal respect and duly armed for the craft. And have whatever help they need from me at their disposal 24/7. It's the team that makes the mark, wins the daily match. Border taught me that.
Later
