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- Oct 7, 2020
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Nice, I'm just a little jealous, OK more then just a little jealous!
One of these days it will be my turn.
One of these days it will be my turn.
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Becoming hobby machinist in the near future.
- Thread starter Rodneyk
- Start date
I understand the feeling, until recently I was afraid to order this equipment because of the wife not understanding why I needed it. I am now getting close to retirement from the tech industry and decided I better come up with something to do once they kick me to the curb. Plus this keeps me out of my wife's hair for long periods of time.
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2016
- Messages
- 7,165
I started acquiring equipment 4 years prior to retiring, after I got out of commercial fishing. August will make 2 years retired from EMS, Sneaking into machining was easier to explain to my wife than, I'm going to take over(1/2 of) the garage, and make a large 5 figure investment, so I can play. Now she has the "wait, what, when did this happen" look. 
I don't know your shop situation. Mine is my garage with an attic above. I find a 2-ton engine hoist useful and have a growing collection of lifting straps, 2-4 tons shoulder eye bolts, D-ring and quick-link shackles, chains (various lengths), 1-ton over-head chain hoist, manual and electric winches, a small rigging manual that I bought at a used book store. I also built a laminated 2x12, 12-foot long beam above the attic joists to spread out the weight when using the chain hoist for "lighter" loads. While this is useful, it is limited by the location of the attic access hatch, so machine has to be placed in this location before lifting. I find the rigging manual helpful and costs only a few bucks, which is money extremely well spent. It is fun to apply Newtonian physics during these occasions.
Just received an email from QMT/PM that my 1340GT is in there shop undergoing quality control prior to shipping. I understand that mine is #3 on the list, so should be shipping relatively soon. Now I really need to clean the workshop to make room (again)
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- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
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- 820
Just subscribing! Tapatalk keeps crashing on me.
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- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
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- 820
I was seriously considering the 1440GT and the 1440GS. Part of me is convinced that the Taiwan built machines should be better, but I have actually have no evidence on that besides hearsay and advertising from various companies. I will certainly post my experiences. It seems like there are quite a few people who purchase the same machines in concert (some have PMed me and even sent me photos of how they are setting up there machines. The 1340 is going to be quite the project since I bought the 3 phase until and have been working with Mark Jacobs to build out a control system for it. Definitely a lot of work on that before I will see any chips.
The 1340 is probabaly overkill for my current needs but I can imagine needing more and I cannot imagine what I would do to swap out one with another. I am generally pretty handy, but unloading and installing the mill took a full day with 2 people and a few bits of help from my wife. This is the heaviest thing I have ever had to move, and the 1340 is bigger still. I am sure I could do it faster if I ever wanted to move it since half of the time was trying to figure out how to get it off the pallet, it require 3 stages because it was on a double pallet.
The funny thing is that for my primary use I want to turn pretty small objects very precisely.
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- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
- Messages
- 820
I’m considering the 3 phase version as well. Is a VFD control system complicated? Would you mind including another in the planning for this with Mark?
I will reply in a PM.