Tool making
Tool making typically means making tooling used to produce products. Common tools include metal forming rolls, lathe bits, milling cutters, and form tools. Tool making may also include precision fixturing or machine tools used to manufacture, hold, or test products during their fabrication. Due to the unique nature of a tool maker's work, it is often necessary to fabricate custom tools or modify standard tools.
Die making
Die making is a subgenre of tool making that focuses on making and maintaining dies. This often includes making punches, dies, steel rule dies, and die sets. Precision is key in die making; punches and dies must maintain proper clearance to produce parts accurately, and it is often necessary to have die sets machined with tolerances of less than one thousandth of an inch.
Conventional machining, one of the most important material removal methods, is a collection of material-working processes in which power-driven machine tools, such as lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, are used with a sharp cutting tool to mechanically cut the material to achieve the desired geometry. Machining is a part of the manufacture of almost all metal products, and it is common for other materials, such as wood and plastic, to be machined. A person who specializes in machining is called a machinist. A room, building, or company where machining is done is called a machine shop. Much of modern day machining is controlled by computers using computer numerical control (CNC) machining. Machining can be a business, a hobby, or both.
The precise meaning of the term "machining" has evolved over the past 1.5 centuries as technology has advanced. During the Machine Age, it referred to (what we today might call) the "traditional" machining processes, such as turning, boring, drilling, milling, broaching, sawing, shaping, planing, reaming, and tapping, or sometimes to grinding. Since the advent of new technologies such as electrical discharge machining, electrochemical machining, electron beam machining, photochemical machining, and ultrasonic machining, the retronym "conventional machining" can be used to differentiate the classic technologies from the newer ones. The term "machining" without qualification usually implies conventional machining.