When people ask me what I do as a machinist. I answer, "I make round things square and square things round."

You were the kid that forced the round thing into the square hole.

As someone who has zero experience with lathes or machining in general, this video was fascinating as hell.

I should have gone to bed some time ago. I suspect I'm not the only one.

I'm not a machinist but when I do machining I take good round things and turn them into scrap ;)

Thank you for this.  My father was taught to be a machinist in the Navy before WW II, his final test was a cube accurate to ± 0.001 using only a lathe.  He had a trade that served him well until he passed in 1993. This gave me some insight.

Everyone's commenting on how it's not perfect....I don't see many tutorials that are more than "I'm gonna show you what to, but you figure out how to do it better." The whole point of teaching isn't to show them exactly how to make it flawlessly, but to give them direction and then let them figure it out. That's how people learn.

Wow. I have no machining knowledge/experience. Vocalizing every single action (or reason for inaction) really makes a educational video better for a lay person. This was beautiful. I would've never thought a cube could be made in a lathe - now it's like "of course!" Thanks for an interesting 20m

BTW everyone, it's not a gauge block, its a demo of a concept. Relax.

19:03 for the 1.5 seconds where you see the finished product

Huh, this is the first time I've seen someone turn a cube on a lathe. Never knew that was even possible, but now it makes perfect sense.

If you can find fault in his procedure/technique, then you do not need to watch this video. I learned the basics and that was good enough for me.

I remember doing this in high school it was our final exam. A perfect 1 inch cube. Some students got away with being off a few thousands and were graded accordingly but some were held to a higher standard. I got to see mine thrown in the garbage twice for not being perfect. Off by one thousandth, lol. Thankful he pushed me to always give it my best effort.

I was a machinist before I got into computer networking. I really miss making useful parts. Electronics is fine, but creating intricate parts from stock metal is real skill.

Use to be a machinist and never thought of doing this but I found it Fascinating indeed.. I use to do many things one being making or finishing complete brake rotors from a raw casting, thousands of them.

Saw the title and just assumed it was this old tony.

I’m not a machinist but have ran a lathe a few times in my day and found this very informative and interesting on how and why things were done in keeping reference points👍👍

I loved my time as a toolmaker in the 80's. I was taught by a genius who was born in 1933. A truly great man. I've applied that knowledge since many many times, much more in fact than anything I was taught in school. Thank you Sam. R.I.P.

Interesting some of the pros get their panties in a wad watching this and us rookies find it fascinating and informative.

Interesting concept. Thanks for the lesson.