COMMENTS ON "Skills Inventory"
Each "comments" page has comments, suggestions, etc from friends and readers. To add your comment, email Mary lou and Claire at gulch@iname.com
From: Julia_Cochrane@iint.com
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 14:27:54 -0400
You've omitted a vital skill from your skills inventory. Machining.
Operating machine tools is different from blacksmithing, but a critical skill because if you have people who can repair things with the right spare parts and the right tools, the machinist is the one who can make the parts (provided you've had the forethought to include the specifications for your critical equipment in your library), or jerry rig parts, when normal distribution systems fail.
How critical you consider this skill depends on the level of technology you expect to sustain. If you want modern technology, the machinist, who can make or repair guns (not as well as a gunsmith--which you also need--some gun parts wear out regularly from shooting--but well enough to keep things shootable, and better with practice), who can make car or tractor or airplane parts, who can make generator parts, who can make plumbing or oven parts, who can make heater or air conditioner parts-----is strictly necessary and highly versatile. I would think a gulch could plan some way to melt down worn-out metal stuff of various metals and recast it into blocks or bars, if not remill it, into something the machinist can use. He/she could probably help plan what would be needed.
The machinist and his/her apprentices in your gulch are your gulch's lifeline to continuing to enjoy and enhance your technology level even if the rest of the world goes to hell.
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