Welcome to TimBobTastic.com, Tim Bird’s home on the web.

I am a passionate engineer who has an opinion on just about everything and as you can see from my blog and twitter feed I enjoy sharing my thoughts and voicing my opinions with the world from time to time.

Engineering has been in my blood as long as I can remember. I first became passionate about the subject through my Father who was a Toolmaker by trade, in my opinion, a very good engineer…. probably one of the best. He taught me how to make models when I was very young, nurturing my skills and helping me to hone my abilities. My father had a sparsely equipped shed but he made all kinds of exciting things in his spare time from small working model steam engines that would fit in the palm of your hand to jewellery and lace making bobbins for my mother.

I started my career on the shop floor of a small sheet metal work company who made everything from weighing equipment for the food industry to plant items to repair quarry machinery. It was here that I learnt most of my engineering skills, starting as a sheet metal worker and finishing as a engineer. We had a selection of very old machine tools, all circa 1945, but I was taught that engineering was about what you knew and how you applied your knowledge. We didn’t have fancy equipment such as dividing heads or copying attachments, we made do with what we had. During the 7 years I was there we never turned a job down because we didn’t have the correct equipment to make it on, we came up with engineering solutions to the problems we had presented to us based on the equipment we had to hand.

Nothing was impossible, it was challenging and difficult but I quickly learnt how to use the equipment we had to the fullest capacity, from using a lathe as a milling machine to using a vertical milling machine to broach keyways in gears and pulleys

From here my passion grew, I was passionate about engineering and had a thirst for knowledge, I wanted to learn every aspect of my chosen trade.

Life has dealt me a few knocks, especially when I was a child, but I have never let them get the better of me, I firmly believe if it doesn’t kill me it will make me stronger. When I was 7 I spent the best part of a year and a half in and out of hospital with a degenerative hip condition (Perthes Disease), this led to my first major surgery, followed by six months in plaster from the waist down. When I was 13 I had a diseased kidney removed causing me to have another 3 or 4 months off school.

These events definitely made me stronger, making me more determined to get better, to prove the doctors wrong when they told me I would never hold down a full time job that required me to stand up all day long. It was grit and determination that drove me to prove them wrong and it is the same grit and determination that has driven me to become the person I am today.

Short Bio.

Name: Tim Bird
Location: West Wiltshire
Children: Yes
Hobbies: Cycling
.             Photography
.             Music (Anything goes, but 80′s or 90’s always win)
.             Running
Occupation: Engineer

Career Progression.

• White Horse CAD Limited (2017 – Present)
  Managing Director: Product Design and Project Management
• Aurora Medical Limited (2011 – 2017)
  Senior Design Engineer: Orthopaedic Devices
• Finsbury (Development) Ltd (2006 – 2010)
  Senior Research Manufacturing Engineer: Orthopaedic Devices
• Micro Precision Instrument Ltd (1993 – 2006)
  Engineering Manager: Orthopaedic Devices
• Ian Fellows Ltd (1986 – 1993)
  Engineer: Time Served Multi Discipline Apprenticeship

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