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Engineering Sayings

  • Thread starter Thread starter mike-g
  • Start date Start date
M

mike-g

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Machinist to fitter.
Q How much more do you want off
A About gnats Knacker.
 
The ones that always did my head in as a Plumber where
'How's ya pipe?'
a 'Pipe does something for you'
And the worst .....'If a Bricklayer can lay bricks, why can't a Plumber lay Plums?'
Each one delivered a thousand times by a thousand people all thinking they were the first
 
YES KANDOR ALL THE TRADES MEN  IN VARIETY,S OF TRADE S AN SAYING ,
  BUT WHEN YOU FIRST START WORK  THATS WHEN THEY WIND YOU UP , AND
  AND YOU ARE RIGHT WE ALL THINK WE WERE THE FIRST , AND IN TURN WE REGENERAT
  LIKE THE PAINTERS THEY SAY TO THE NEW APPRENTICE ,
  GO AND FETCH ME THE GLASS HAMMER  FOR REPLACING A PANE OF GLASS ,
  OR ASKED CHARLIE THE FORMAN  FOR THE GALLON OF STRIPED PAINT ,
TO DO THE SKIRTING BOARD S ,
 
BEING RIGHT DOES,NT COUNT
UNTIL THE RIGHT PEOPLE KNOW YOU,RE RIGHT .


YOU,RE NEVER A LOSER
UNTIL YOU STOP TRYING .
 
Re Engineering Sayings,

Toolmaker I once worked with would say, "you wouldn't see that going down the road on a number 8 bus," if you/he did a good job of something. Never got it myself.
 
I heard a foreman tell a trainee to go to the stores and ask for a long weight. The storeman, in on the jokes, told the lad to wait there. He stood to one side for ages.
 
Got sent to the drawing stores at the GEC Switchgear once to get a "SHORT CIRCUIT DIAGRAM " & I know many a lad sent to the tool stores for a "BIRMINGHAM SCREWDRIVER" (Hammer by any other name).
ASTON
 
If something was done not quite right but it'd do I've heard the phrase: "A galloping man on horseback wouldn't notice."... similar to shavedfish49's number 8 bus I s'pose. :redface:
 
My hubby still uses the phrase a "job in the town" he also remembers an apprentice being sent for a bag of spirit bubbles!:rolleyes:
 
Egineering Sayings

When i was an appretice toolmaker, many a good scive was to go along with the old old toolmakers who sent you to central stores for a SACK OF SPARKS for the grinder or for a LONG WEIGHT or a BOX OF HALF INCH HOLES many a clip round the ear i got of the chief storekeeper.:P
 
An old Foreman of mind at Lucas who was in the Navy in war used the saying for any big order "This ones going to be a Dockyard Job"
 
More Black Country than Brummie, but when something required a heavy thump or a whack with a hammer, the expression that always made me laugh was, "Gie it a cog 'eaver, mate!" I haven't got the faintest idea what a 'cog heaver' was, is or might be.:D

My old man used to tell me I was as "thick as an 'alf-ender".

Bg Gee
 
"How tight should this be Reg?"
"As tight as you can plus half a turn" came the reply.


"We'd better go home now it's getting dark over Bill's mother's"

"That's better than a job in the town"

When I was a youngster in the motor trade and was having difficulty in fixing something my boss would say "Just imagine you are staring at an engine in a tank in the middle of the African desert and Rommel is going to appear from behind a sand dune in two hours time, you'll fix it"

Recalling his time as a tank mechanic with the desert rats.
 
I would send an apprentice for a B.s..rd file, the ones who thought they knew it all would refuse, i would insist with colourful words and the would come back with one looking sheepish, Micrometer Blue used for a number of purposes, it was known as Blue Unction it got all over your fingers!. Some would ask for a movable spanner they would be handed a ring spanner the answer was " no one i can make fit the nut.", that spanner is movable, what you should have asked for was an adjustable spanner, " idiot!!". "Pudding Week" you tried to earn as much as you could before your holidays,Coventry workers called it "Bull Week".
 
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Chap I work with at the mo is always saying "near enough isn't good enough"

I worked with someone who always said that but ended it with - "It's got to be right". The response of "well it is right" simply received the retort of "Oh well that's good enough then":confused:

Someone else I worked with would say something was "a bit Bay Window" if it looked wrong. Mind you he was from Coventry ;)
 
guy i worked with in the 80's would say "do you want it right or very right." he would also say about something that had to be "very right" "nobody can make that so you have to buy it."
 
I was an apprentice in the toolroom at Charles H Pugh (Atco) a couple of sayings were,cock on is near a enough, & The impossible we can do, but Miracles take a little longer
 
When taking too much time over a job in the building trade. " it aint the Town Hall steps you know".

Phil
 
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