Obviously, Yoda never taught at the North Avenue Trade School, because the motto of esteemed Georgia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Machine Shop seems to be, for me at least, “We can try.”

Last week, my committee and I came up with an emergency backup plan to have some new specimens made lickity-split to get some basic data and get me the hell out of here. We barely have enough money leftover in the budget to do this, but it has to be spent by the end of the fiscal year, June 30. I have vendors that can make them fast and right but for too much money; a vendor that can make them right and on cost but maybe not in time; and then I have the ME Machine Shop, who can make them for free, maybe on time, and as far as being able to cut a superalloy bar, well, they can try.

No. You see, I have to order these now. I need them by early June. And I need them to work. I do not have time, once you screw the first one up beyond recognition, to go out for new quotes or get them in the queue at another shop to be done and invoiced and paid by June 30.

“What’s the hardness of the material?” I don’t know, it’s a superalloy, so think, like, hard. Really hard. Maybe superhard, but crap, I’m the grad student here, you’re the seasoned old machine shop foreman; am I seriously the first chump to ever ask for some superalloy specimens of you?

“Well like I said, we can try.”

That’s what you want to see at the bottom of all your manufacturing quotes. Delivery: 14 days ARO. F.O.B.: Destination. Terms: We will try.

And somehow this is a great engineering school.



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