Kids making lathes

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by motto

I went to the Footscray Technical College in the early 60s and they had two excellent machine shops, moulding shop (casting in aluminium),welding shop, sheet metal shop and carpenters shops. I never heard of any participation in the war effort but that was 20 years previous and I don't know what capability there would have been at that time.
What I do know is that it is all gone now along with so many other technical schools and their facilities. Apparently it was decided at some point that we no longer needed skilled tradesmen.

David

Your school history ........... a bunch of misfits


http://www.vucentenary.com.au/our-story

[motto]

You're absolutely right Mike, I certainly wouldn't fit in there at all. it's way too academic now.
When I was attending FTC, Footscray and Maribyrnong were still heavily industrialised. The ordnance and ammunition factories were still substantial entities and you could often hear the machine guns test firing a mile or so away.
One of the highlights was a visit to the ammunition factory where we were strictly forbidden to take any samples but all walked out with jangling pockets. It's no wonder they wouldn't let us near the filling room or the live ammo.
Apologies for hijacking your thread, it jogged some memories.
Dave
The Misfit

[Dave Mills]

Oh, what memories!!!! I was lucky to go to Aspendale Techinical School in the early 70's and the same, machine shops, automotive, plumbing, technical drawing and wood what a great school; a boys heaven. I learnt so many life skills as well as skills of the trade from the old TRADIES!!!!!!! The same tradies who clipped us across the ears and settled us down. Entered the trades and have never looked back. No sign of the war effort, although the old Assy Tech was only established in the late 60's never the less focused on training young people on being tradespeople. In the land of Aus I feel we sadly miss this type of education for our youth.

[Matt Austin]

Dave, I went to Bonbeach High in the 1980s; not far from Aspendale Tech. It was a sad day when Assy Tech closed, but those were the early days of the shift away from that type of education, more's the pity. Bonny High closed around the same time, a victim of falling enrollments and school mergers.

There was an us versus them thing with the Assy Tech kids, but we knew that the school produced well-educated and capable adults.

[Sam Scholz]

Some of the current thinking (that I see) is that, statistically, tertiary educated people are happier, so everyone should be tertiary educated and the nation will be a happier place. So, trade bound people should all study to become engineers. Therefore, the system is set up to push people toward tertiary and trade education, although it LOOKS like a priority (in QLD), is not seen as any real value.
The decision makers seem to have only a very tenuous grasp of the realities of life in this area. eg., for every engineer on a job, there needs to be many many tradesmen.
Education standards are going through the floor, and they don't seem to know why.
Ask a teacher, it's a no-brainer to us.

Sam, Manual Arts teacher in Queensland (ret.)

[Mike K]

Another example of School kids at work during WW2

http://metalworkforums.com/redirect-...62ef0a2431d4eb

[Perry Kitson]

It was quite common to see machine tools that were made during the war sporting "War Finish" markings. Some even went as far as to explain that although it was not their standard finish, all critical fits and tolerances were guaranteed.