About Me 

Hello and welcome here. I am Pedro (Peter) Giesbrecht and reside in Manitoba, Canada.

Currently, I work as a "machine designer" for a large company. Mostly creating solutions to assist in the building of their products. Designing fixtures, templates and many other related tasks. Mostly behind a computer designing and machinists build the designs I create. I am a toolmaker by trade.

When I accepted my current employment we moved 1.5 hours from any access to machining equipment. However, I was able to purchase a small mini lathe and a mill/drill from someone I knew wasn't using them.

Mostly I have been building air rifles for myself the last few years and using minimal tooling. FYI - I will not be posting any air rifle related builds on this site. To many red flags these days by Google. Visit airgundevelopment.com to learn more.

I do as much on a budget as possible and that is what I hope this site and YouTube videos in the future.

My interests are broad. On this site I will be covering my new interest, Stirling engines. Along with making tooling to assist in building these engines as I do not have an abundance of tooling.

More background...

I have been around machining since the age of 12. My father owned machining & repair shop and insisted his sons were going to learn something practical. I cut my first thread on a lathe that year, 3/4" but forget the pitch. My summers were spent assisting him where ever my younger brother and I could.

My dad was bought out by a former employer in my early teens. I worked summers and after school as lathe operator machining cast iron sprockets. During my time with them, I started working with CNC mills, and lathes. I learned as much as I could and spent a year after high school working for the agricultural company.

During that time, I had an opportunity to move to Ontario and work for a relative. Unfortunately that job fell through by the time I arrived and ended up working in his fab shop. It wasn't for me as I wanted to get into tool & die. I landed a job working for a small tool and die shop a few months later. The owner took me under his wing and I was able to learn more about CNC milling hands on. I ran the mills, learned CADCAM and eventually started designing molds, work only the employer performed. At this time I was able to go into the tool & die apprenticeship program. Two years of night school and exam later I was a licensed toolmaker.

Through the 6 years I worked for the tool & die company, I learned a lot. My employer had me and another coworker trained to run a wire EDM that he was going to purchase. I spent 2 years running the machine. After this employer, I decided to move back to Manitoba.

Worked with my father once again as he was running a part time machine shop. That lasted 5-6 years, of which 2-3 years I worked under contract for him and had my own business on the side. After this I worked for another agricultural manufacturing doing both design and build work on the lathe and mill.

To sum things up, I have been around a lot of metal working in my life. Now I want to share things with others who want to learn. Although I might be considered a professional toolmaker and still am very much an amateur at many things. I hope to apply more things that I have seen and learned over the last few years through this site and YouTube.

Thanks for reading...