Introduction to Machining and Lab

Course Description

Introduction to Machining and Lab prepares students for careers in machining, covering workplace safety, manufacturing history, and the value of employability and entrepreneurial skills. The curriculum includes job-related mathematics, fundamental blueprint interpretation with geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), precision measurement techniques, and metrology fundamentals, with practical experience in primary and secondary manufacturing processes, power saw operation, and drill press use. A minimum grade of C is required to advance within the programme.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, PMT is the Precision Metals prefix, and the 0000-level number marks this as PSAV clock-hour instruction. Daytona State publishes it at 150 clock hours with a $190.25 lab fee, offered fall. ⚠ It carries no college credit.

Measurement is the real subject of this course, and it is what makes a machinist. Anyone can remove metal; the trade is about removing exactly the right amount, verifying it, and being able to prove it. A part is not finished until it has been measured — and a machinist who cannot read a micrometer reliably, or who does not understand what a drawing's tolerances actually permit, cannot be trusted with work.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply machine shop safety practice and describe the hazards of each machine.
• Describe personal protective equipment and clothing requirements.
• Describe rotating machinery hazards and entanglement prevention.
• Apply lockout-tagout and safe setup practice.
• Describe the history and structure of the manufacturing industry.
• Describe employability and entrepreneurial skills relevant to the trade.
• Apply shop mathematics: fractions, decimals, and conversions.
• Apply geometry and trigonometry to machining problems.
• Calculate speeds and feeds for a material and tool.
• Read and interpret engineering drawings.
• Interpret dimensions, tolerances, and notes on a drawing.
• Describe geometric dimensioning and tolerancing symbols and their meaning.
• Interpret datum references and feature control frames.
• Use steel rules, calipers, and micrometers accurately.
• Read a vernier, dial, and digital instrument correctly.
• Use dial indicators, gauge blocks, and comparison measurement.
• Describe metrology fundamentals, including accuracy, precision, and calibration.
• Describe sources of measurement error and control them.
• Inspect a part against a drawing and record the results.
• Describe primary and secondary manufacturing processes.
• Describe engineering materials and their machinability.
• Perform layout using appropriate tools and methods.
• Operate power saws safely and cut material to size.
• Operate a drill press safely, including drilling, reaming, and tapping.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe heat treatment and its effects on machinability.
• Describe surface finish specification and measurement.
• Describe coordinate measuring machines.
• Describe quality systems and inspection documentation.
• Describe additive manufacturing and its relationship to machining.
• Prepare for a NIMS measurement and materials credential.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Machine shop safety
• Personal protective equipment and clothing
• Rotating machinery and entanglement
• Lockout-tagout and safe setup
• Manufacturing history and structure
• Employability and entrepreneurship
• Shop mathematics
• Geometry and trigonometry in machining
• Speeds and feeds
• Engineering drawings
• Dimensions, tolerances, and notes
• GD&T symbols
• Datums and feature control frames
• Rules, calipers, and micrometers
• Vernier, dial, and digital reading
• Indicators and gauge blocks
• Metrology fundamentals
• Measurement error
• Part inspection and recording
• Primary and secondary processes
• Materials and machinability
• Layout
• Power saw operation
• Drill press operation

Optional Topics

• Heat treatment and machinability
• Surface finish
• Coordinate measuring machines
• Quality systems
• Additive manufacturing
• NIMS credential preparation

Resources & Tools

• The programme's shop, machines, and open lab hours — the reason to take this in person, and the single highest-return resource here. These are motor skills; hours on the machine are what build them.
• American Welding Society (aws.org) — codes, certification information, and student membership; the authority for anything in this guide about welder qualification.
• NIMS (nims-skills.org) — free credential standards and performance test specifications; read the standard before you sit the test.
• Machinery's Handbook — the machinist's reference, and worth owning even at its price; speeds, feeds, threads, tolerances, and materials.
• Welding Principles and Applications (Jeffus) — the standard welding text.
• Technology of Machine Tools (Krar) and Machine Shop Practice — the standard machining references.
• GD&T references based on ASME Y14.5 — geometric dimensioning and tolerancing is the language of engineering drawings and it is examinable.
• Manufacturer machine and control manuals — Haas, Fanuc, Mazak and others publish extensive free operator and programming documentation.
• Fusion 360 or Mastercam — Fusion 360 has free personal and educational licensing and is widely used for CAD/CAM; practise toolpaths outside lab hours.
• OSHA machine guarding and welding standards (osha.gov) — free, and directly relevant to the safety content of every course here.
• Your own measuring tools — a decent micrometer, calipers, and a dial indicator. Cheap measuring tools produce confident wrong numbers.
• A welding helmet you can actually see through — an auto-darkening helmet with a good lens is the best money a welding student spends.

Career Pathways

• Welder, cutter, solderer, or brazer — SOC 51-4121.
• Machinist — SOC 51-4041.
• Computer numerically controlled tool operator — SOC 51-9161; CNC tool programmer — SOC 51-9162, the better-paid of the two.
• Structural and construction welding — steel erection and fabrication.
• Pipe welding — process plants, utilities, and shutdown work; among the best-paid work in the trade, and 6G qualification is the gateway.
• Marine and shipyard welding and fabrication — a large Florida sector.
• Aerospace machining and welding — precision work to demanding standards, frequently with certification and clearance requirements.
• Job shop and contract machining — where most newly certified machinists start.
• Tool and die making, and mould making — a highly skilled speciality with long training and strong earnings.
• Quality inspection and metrology — CMM operation and first-article inspection; a route off the machines that uses the same knowledge.
• CNC programming and CAD/CAM — the natural progression from operating, and where the pay increases.
• Maintenance and millwright work in manufacturing, utilities, and theme parks — frequently salaried with benefits.
• Welding inspection — the AWS Certified Welding Inspector credential requires documented experience and is a well-paid career step off the tools.
• Mobile welding and self-employment — real in this trade, and a business as much as a craft.

Special Information

⚠⚠ Learn to measure properly before you learn to cut

• A machinist who cannot measure reliably is producing scrap with confidence. Measurement is the foundation of everything in this trade, and it is a learned skill rather than an obvious one.
• Feel matters on a micrometer. Consistent contact pressure is what makes readings repeatable; use the ratchet or thimble the same way every time, and check yourself against gauge blocks.
• Measure the same feature several times and in several places. A single reading tells you nothing about taper, ovality, or your own consistency.
• Temperature affects measurement. A part straight off the machine is hot and will read oversize — on close tolerance work, let it stabilise.
• Clean everything. A chip or a film of coolant between the anvil and the work is a measurement error, and it is the most common one.
• Understand what the tolerance permits before you cut. A drawing calling ±0.005 and one calling ±0.0005 describe entirely different jobs, and machining to the tighter one unnecessarily wastes time and money.
• ⚠ GD&T is not decoration on the drawing. Position, flatness, perpendicularity and profile control how a part functions in an assembly, and a part within its size tolerance can still be rejected on geometry. Learn to read feature control frames properly.
• Look after your instruments. A dropped micrometer is a suspect micrometer until it has been checked; store them clean, oiled, and not touching each other.
• Write down what you measured. Inspection records are part of the job in any quality-controlled shop.

⚠⚠ Rotating machinery — the rule that matters most is about what you wear

• ⚠⚠ Never wear gloves, long sleeves, a tie, jewellery, a watch, or loose hair near a rotating machine. Entanglement in a lathe is the classic fatal machining accident, and it is fast, and nothing you can do afterwards helps. Sleeves rolled and secured, hair tied back and contained, rings off.
• Eye protection every time, without exception — chips leave a machine at speed and they are hot and sharp.
• Never clear chips by hand. Machining chips are razor-sharp and frequently hot — use a brush or a hook, and never while the machine is running.
• Stop the machine before measuring, adjusting, or touching the work. Every time. There is no measurement worth taking on a spinning part.
• Remove the chuck key before starting. A chuck key left in becomes a projectile, and it is the most common serious lathe incident after entanglement.
• Secure the workpiece and the tooling properly. Work thrown from a chuck or a vice is dangerous to everyone in the shop.
• Know where the emergency stop is on every machine before you start it, and be able to reach it from where you stand.
• Keep guards in place. Removing a guard to see better is exactly the decision that precedes an injury.
• Lock out for setup, tool changes, and maintenance on powered equipment.
• Coolant causes dermatitis and the mist is a respiratory irritant — wash hands, keep it off skin, and use the mist extraction where fitted.
• Keep the floor clear and dry. Chips and coolant underfoot are a slip hazard next to a machine you do not want to fall into.
• Never leave a running machine unattended, especially a CNC on its first run of a new program.

⚠ NIMS credentials are the machining equivalent, and employers know them

• The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) issues the industry's recognised competency credentials, and this programme is explicitly aligned to them — CNC Milling and CNC Turning: Programming, Setup & Operations Level 1 are named in the course descriptions.
• NIMS credentials require both a written examination and a performance test — you make a part to specification and it is measured. That combination is why employers value them: the credential certifies you can actually hold a tolerance, not merely describe how.
• Collect every credential the programme offers. They cost little while you are enrolled and the machines and instructors are there.
• The performance test is measured to a written specification. Practise producing parts to print, in-tolerance, on the first attempt — not producing something that looks right.
• Stack the credentials. Measurement and metrology, manual milling and turning, CNC milling and turning, and CAD/CAM together describe a complete machinist.
• Certification fees are usually separate from course fees — budget for them.
• Keep your credential records and your sample parts. A first-piece inspection report and the part it describes are genuinely persuasive at interview.

⚠ A grade of C or better is a progression gate, not a target

• Daytona State states in these course descriptions that a grade of C or better is required to continue in the programme — and in the final courses, to graduate from it.
• This is a cohort programme. Falling below the gate does not merely cost a grade; it can remove you from the sequence until the course is offered again, which may be a full year.
• Ask early what happens if you fall short — repeat policy, how many attempts are permitted, and whether financial aid covers a repeat.
• Practical skill assessments are frequently pass-or-repeat rather than graded on a percentage, and a failed weld test or setup check is exactly the kind of thing that stalls progression.
• Attendance directly affects the outcome in a clock-hour programme where the skill is built by hours on the machine.
• Ask for help before you are behind, not after. Instructors in trade programmes have far more options at week three than at week twelve.
• Use open lab time. The students who pass practical assessments first are almost always the ones putting in unscheduled hours.

⚠⚠ Budget for the laboratory fees and the tools

• Daytona State publishes a laboratory fee for every course in this programme, and in the welding sequence they are substantial — from roughly $390 to $463 per course. The machining courses run lower, roughly $76 to $190.
• PSAV programmes advertise low tuition; the fees and tools are where the real cost sits. Ask the programme for a complete cost sheet before you enrol — tuition, every course fee, tools, textbooks, certification test fees, and personal protective equipment.
• The fees cover genuinely expensive consumables — filler metal, electrodes, shielding gas, plate and pipe stock, cutting tools and inserts, and wear on machines.
• You will need your own personal protective equipment and hand tools. Get the programme's required list early and buy over time. For welding that means a good helmet, jacket, gloves, and safety boots; for machining, measuring tools you will use daily.
• Buy quality where it protects you or determines accuracy. An auto-darkening helmet with a proper shade range, and a decent micrometer and dial indicator, are worth the money; most other things are not.
• Certification test fees are usually separate — NIMS credentials and welder qualification tests both cost extra.
• Ask about workforce funding. Trade programmes frequently have funding routes degree students do not, including employer sponsorship, apprenticeship arrangements, and Florida workforce grants.

⚠⚠ This is a PSAV clock-hour course — it carries no college credit

• The leading zero in the course number is the signal. Under the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System, a 0000-level number denotes postsecondary adult vocational (PSAV) instruction, measured in clock hours rather than semester credit hours. These courses carry zero college credit.
• ⚠ A catalog may display the clock-hour figure under a heading that reads "credit hours." It is not credits. A 0000-level course showing 280 is 280 hours of instruction, not 280 semester credits.
• PSAV hours do not transfer as college credit to an associate or bachelor's degree, and they do not satisfy general education requirements.
• What they produce is a workforce credential — a career certificate plus, in this programme, industry certifications employers ask for by name. For a skilled trade that is frequently exactly the right outcome, reached far faster and more cheaply than a degree.
• Some institutions offer articulation from a PSAV certificate into a related associate degree. ⚠ These are institution-specific and they change. If you intend to continue to a degree, get the articulation in writing from the receiving institution before you enrol.
• Financial aid rules differ for clock-hour programmes — ask the financial aid office specifically about clock-hour programmes.
• Attendance is the currency. Clock-hour programmes track attendance directly and missed hours generally must be made up.

Why metalworking is durable employment in Florida

• Shipbuilding and marine repair — Jacksonville, Tampa, and Port Everglades all support substantial marine fabrication and repair, and marine welding is skilled, well-paid work.
• Aerospace and space — the Space Coast and the wider aerospace supply chain need precision machining and certified welding, frequently to demanding standards.
• Defence contracting across Florida, ⚠ much of which requires U.S. citizenship and sometimes a security clearance.
• Construction and structural steel — sustained Florida construction activity plus storm repair.
• Manufacturing and job shops — general machining work for local industry, and the sector most likely to hire a newly certified machinist.
• Power generation, utilities, and process plants — pipe welding and maintenance, and among the best-paid work in the trade.
• Theme park and attraction fabrication and maintenance — a distinctively Central Florida employer with year-round demand.
• Mobile and rig welding — higher earnings for those who invest in a truck and equipment, though it is a business as much as a trade.
• The workforce is ageing and replacement demand is real — skilled welders and machinists are genuinely scarce, and employers say so.
• Travel and shutdown work pays a substantial premium for those willing to take it.

PMT0202C is 150 clock hours with a $190.25 lab fee, offered fall. ⚠ Clock hours carry no college credit, and a C or better is required to advance.

It is the foundation of the machining certificate and a prerequisite for PMT0215C, PMT0228C and PMT0265C.