(soft piano music) (tool buzzing) (soft piano music) - I didn't really have any influences growing up.

I didn't know what it was until I saw it, and I saw what the guys were doing, and I was like I want to do that.

(machine buzzing) My name is Kristian Duncan, and I am a CNC level two machinist here at Lycoming Engines.

(soft piano music) So this is one of the heads I made today, and I'm going to measure it on the CMM.

It's going to measure about 360 some dimensions in a half an hour and tell me if I made a good part.

(soft pleasant music) It's very important to inspect your parts along the way.

You want to check every dimension.

You want to make sure you're still meeting the blueprint.

Never trust that the machine made a great part.

Just always check your parts.

The number one part of being a great machinist is to inspect your parts.

Walking a part through the cell, I start with a raw casting, and then I make sure I have the right part that I'm running, the right program.

I load it into the machine, load it into my machine, close the door, send it in, let the machine do its work.

Whenever that one comes out of the machine, I debur it.

Turn my deburr gun on, (deburr gun buzzing) start taking these sharp edges off.

(deburr gun buzzing) Making sure it's not going to cut anybody.

I could probably do some dentistry.

I check the dimension, I inspect it 100%, make sure everything's meeting the blueprint.

So you don't just throw a part in there, and hit the green button, and it comes out done.

There's a lot in between there.

You got to worry about the fixturing, how you're going to hold the part, your tools.

If your tools are off by a thousandth, it's going to throw everything off.

A piece of paper is three thousandths, so you're splitting that in thirds, and you got to make sure you can hold that tolerance all day long.

(soft piano music) (light pleasant music) If a dimension goes out, you need to catch that as soon as possible, otherwise, you're going to be creating a ton of bad parts throughout the day.

(light pleasant music) I love figuring out problems.

I love trying to figure out what happened, whether a tool slipped out, a tool broke, or someone just put in the wrong offset or just the machines acting up.

That's what's great about being a machinist is you figure out problems all day long.

To get started as machinists, there's lots of ways to enter the field.

You can do on-the-job training.

A lot of places will hire someone at the bottom and have someone train them.

There's technical schools you can go to.

I personally went the military route.

If you're more than willing to learn, they're always more than willing to train you.

(light pleasant music) There's a need for a machinist everywhere.

Everybody needs someone, someone to make something for them.

This career has allowed me to live the life I want to live.

It lets me go fishing on the weekends, hunting on the weekends.

And now it's just kind of on the machine.

The machine's going to do all the work.

It's a very like in demand trade, very technical and everybody's looking for a machinist.

What gives me the most pride when a part is right, knowing like how complex they are, and I was able to get everything correct every time on and create an engine that flies on a plane that's not going to have any issues.

When you're in a plane, you can't just pull over in the sky and park on the side of the road.

It doesn't work like that.

So knowing that I produced a quality part I know is going to be quality all the way through the end is my end goal for the day.

(light pleasant music) I love being on the airplanes.

I love being the person responsible for it flying.

I love to know I created a good part to help it fly and help the mission, just help other people down the road.

(light pleasant music)