back , starting in about 2nd grade, (thats about 8 years old) and runing almost all weekends untill I was about 12 ,my DAD (who was a mechanical engineer and a tool and die maker)
got me involved in learning how to use a lathe and milling machine where he worked, my uncle and my dad would constantly be reminiscing,and there was always a pot of coffee, that I was allowed to drink only (while my mom was not looking) which was not an issue as mom was not into watching dad work in the shop,
my uncle and dad talked over hunting trips and the cars and trucks , and rifles they had used and modified as teenagers, and being the machine shop they co-owned, was about a block or so from the real spring-field armory ,
and back in the 1960s it was no problem to stop by the real spring-field armory and for about $20 you could have your dad purchase a surplus 1917 rifle from the armory, I got plenty of exposure between the brothers (dad and my uncle, and my uncle would stop by and both adults would B.S. for hours while both adults worked on the cars and trucks they owned.
obviously as a "KID" I got more than frequent exposure in several areas, and while I was very interested , (and at first a total cults)
I was constantly being exposed too, and shown how too use the machine shops, machine tools, and I learned early that damn near anything could be fabricated by the adults,
I was the only kid I knew that owned a whaling harpoon like QUEQUEG from moby dick ,
had built a real BEAR TRAP from photos with real spring steel (dad helped) and had built an adapter to put a 4 barrel carb on a rambler flat head inline 6 cylinder from scratch before I could legally drive any car.
yeah, the adults were a steady "bad influence" I was told repeatedly, we can,t afford that, why not build your own?
or theres no damn reason you can,t fix that,
scratch up some plans, on a legal pad, include the measurements and if it looks feasible maybe we can make one!
it certainly didn,t hurt a 8-12 year olds imagination,that there were dozens of playboy centerfolds
and hundreds of photos of my dad in army air-force fatigues showing him working on various air planes like PBYs and old hot rod cars my uncle and dad had built, in the mid 1950s-1960s taped to the shop walls.
at about age 12 my dad and uncle moved the shop to hollywood florida and visiting my dad and uncles shop, and CRANE CAMS
https://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/94649615/large
(dad and my uncle Donald had friends that worked there when it was in hallendale, on dixie highway, time spent at dads shop, was not all that infrequent during my teen years