COOKED
The modal worker sets up and runs laser, rotary, or chemical etching equipment and prepares artwork files — layout, font selection, vectorizing logos, and proofing are exactly the screen tasks generative design tools and templated e-commerce ordering systems already absorb. What holds is the physical half: fixturing odd-shaped parts, tuning power/speed on unfamiliar substrates, hand-finishing, and reject inspection. A thin artisan tier (hand engraving on firearms, jewelry, trophies with genuine craft reputation) sells the human hand itself, but it is not the national median of this 7,750-person occupation.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. A 7 reflects that the file-side half of the day — importing a customer logo, vectorizing it, setting kerning on a nameplate, nesting parts on the bed, running a test coupon — is already handled by templated online ordering and one-click raster/vector conversion, while jig-building for a curved bell or tapered tumbler and judging whether the anneal on stainless came out grey enough to pass still need someone at the machine, which is why it sits above the 0-6 already-automatable band rather than in the mixed middle.
Some physical or field component. 11 comes from work that is hands-on but in your own shop under your own light: clamping and shimming odd-shaped parts, swapping lenses and cleaning optics, pulling parts through masking and etchant baths, running rotary attachments, and hand-buffing or filling with wax — physical and skilled, but not the uncontrolled outdoor or in-service conditions that push a score past 13.
No licence, no signature requirement. 1 is right because no state licences etching or engraving; the only credentials that touch the job are laser-safety and hazmat handling for ferric chloride and nitric baths, and those attach to the employer's OSHA and EPA compliance, not to a personal certificate that a machine cannot legally replace.
Anonymous artifact production. 5 accounts for the trophy shop or plant engraver who has repeat accounts with an awards distributor or an OEM's parts department, but the purchase order specifies part number, text, and depth — the buyer is choosing a spec and a turnaround date, not you, which is why this lands at the top of the anonymous-output band rather than in relationship territory.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. 4 fits calls that are real but bounded and reversible on a scrap coupon: power/speed/frequency for an unfamiliar anodized aluminum, whether a mark is deep enough for a UID or serial requirement, whether to scrap a piece with a flare-out — decisions made against sample plates and customer proofs, with the consequence measured in one ruined blank, not the ambiguous high-stakes exposure of the 14-20 band.
Model Makers, Metal and Plastic EXPOSED
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