The Art of Filing

Tonight I was scheduled to have my first practical workshop at AUT. It’s a requirement for second year Engineering students to attend these practical workshops to learn skills such as drilling and bench work, welding, how to use a lathe, etc. I only realised I didn’t have the gear I needed for the workshop last night so this morning I went to the NZ Safety store in Avondale with my parents to get kitted out with overalls and steel-capped boots. The lady at the store suggested that I get a larger size since it’s likely to shrink in the wash, so I ended up getting a size that made me look fat in.

Fire drill at the gym

When I got to Uni, I met up with Rose and Angie at the gym to play squash. It was the first time I had played squash for the year so I was understandably a little rusty. Not long into our squash sesh, we heard a continuous alarm ringing. Initially we just ignored it but after ringing for more than ten seconds, we assumed it was a fire drill. Sure enough, all the people down in the gym were also heading up the stairs as we shuffled outside in a big mob of sweat. It was a relief to get some fresh air once we made it outside; I’m sure the others felt like they could do with a bit of a cool-down too. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long before we were allowed back in, and we continued playing squash until nearly half-past eleven.

I played squash with Rose and Angie at the Uni gym

The workshop is located on St Pauls Street

There wasn’t much time to get ready after my last lecture finished at 5pm. I had to go upstairs to my locker to get my gear before making my way across the road to find out where this workshop was being held at AUT. It wasn’t that much of a mission to find actually; the small lecture room was nearly full by the time I arrived. We were introduced to the University before being given an outline of what we’re going to do over the 9-week course. We were then split into three groups and sent to different workshops. I was put into Group 1 with our teaching assistant being Paul, this guy who looks a lot like the main character in the Eddie Murphy film The Nutty Professor. For the first three weeks our group is going to be doing “bench” work. Our project is to contruct a drill gauge with a piece of metal. The first task we were assigned to do was to file the edge of the piece of metal. You’d think it’s simple but as I found out, it’s actually really hard to get the surface completely flat. I spent the better part of 40 minutes just filing this darn piece of metal trying to even out the surface.

My first workshop was spent filing a piece of metal

Even when I thought it was straight enough, the flatness test we used didn’t agree with my judgement! I should probably explain what I mean by the “flatness test”. There was this metal table with ink on its surface and we had to rub the edge of our piece of metal we were filing on to this table. If the edge of the metal was flat, the whole edge would be painted blue by the ink, otherwise the gaps indicated where the lower sections were on the piece of metal.

Finally when I managed to get the edge straight, I had to do the same for the adjacent side and file it flat… at right angles! I thought it would take forever, but surprising it didn’t take too long; maybe I was beginning to master the technique of filing. Next thing to do was mark out where to drill the different sized holes on piece of metal. We had space to drill holes ranging from 3-10mm with 1mm increments. I got all my holes drilled by the end of the workshop so next week I’ll only have to do a few finishing touches before I’ll have my very own drill gauge!