Beginner looking for opinions on getting started

[Paintzapper]

Well I do have some plans for making a bunch of the same parts, already taught myself fusion 360 and made several desings for adapters n such and have had them both 3D printed and one CNCed by someone else Kind of a learning curve but I have an account with linked in where I can make use of their online courses and teach myself stuff. Just don't have much time to fit in more learning on top of everything else right now.

 

[C-Bag]

My second post was a reaction to you asking about cnc routers. But it somehow vaporized. After watching a YouTube with TOT (This Old Tony) where he goes through building his own cnc router I think this is more in line with what you need. After he gets done he makes his son a sword out of wood and rubber band gun out of aluminum and wood. The router would be larger than a mini mill but since you already have some 360 experience your half way there! YouTube has some great stuff on machining.

 

[ThinWoodsman]

Guess I'm a bit late to this thread.

If you do buy a new machine I'd set aside a full day to get it set up.

I fully agree with this. I started with a Taig mill and a 7x12 benchtop lathe. Very, very frustrating experience. Once set up to have low runout, you find that everything moves. A heavy cut knocks the mill column out of tram, or the lathe compound out of alignment, in the middle of a job. I ended up using threaded rod down the mill column to hold it in place, filed and polished the gibs on the lathe, surrounded the base of the lathe with furring strips and filled the area with concrete for good measure. Seemed to improve things, but I still find myself chasing down unwanted movement when cutting steel.

So be prepared to spend a lot of time improving things. Make heavy, pointless cuts (not heavy enough to damage the tool of course) and learn what parts loosen or get knocked out of alignment, then find ways to fix those.

I ended up buying bigger machines anyways, for the larger work envelope and for the rigidity - but for small parts and work in aluminum or plastic they are certainly overkill.

Some say they are paying Fortran coders big $$ these days to program in such an "obsolete" language.

Somewhere around 2002 I took a contract fixing a FORTRAN program, and they were pretty desperate back then. To make matters worse, it was an obsolete dialect that only could compile and run in an emulator. Got a follow-up contract to rewrite the thing in C - modern testing tools made it very easy to verify the mathematical accuracy was not lost in the process.

But I didn't retire off the job, so the $$ weren't that big.

Wow, I'm glad I'm not alone. I wish I had room on the wall for a white board. That's a great idea instead of writing on the bench in silver pencil like I do now

I went to the big-box store (take your pick, blue or orange) and bought a whiteboard panel for I think seven bucks. Cut it to size, glued rare-earth magnets to the back. Bolted some angle-iron to the front edge of a shelf above the bench for the magnets (and magnetic pens) to stick to. Problem solved!

That was attempt # 2 after sticking whiteboard wallpaper to the wall. Tends to peel in humid weather.

 

[millsrv]

Hello Everyone, I am also new to this forum and just wanted to briefly add that the Craigslist option is worth considering for finding a bargain on machines. From my experience patience is key and when something does come up you need to be ready to jump on it.
Recently (in the past year) I found a Power-Kraft (Logan) lathe with several chucks, and a box full of tooling, even a tool post grinder for $500. A few months later I found another for the same price also with extra chucks etc. Now I have 2, 1953 Logan lathes, crazy, I know but I use them both all the time. Time spent here and on YouTube much can be learned about how to check a used machine before buying it. I have purchased additional tooling a QCTP for example and I had to build stands but $1000 for two great lathes that I use daily is hard to beat!

 

[Almega]

I will concur with millsrv. If you are patient and watch the ads and estate sales you can pick up some good bargains. I recently picked up a 1953 Logan 200 that had scarcely been used but for whatever reason was maintained so no rust. It had a stuck chuck but otherwise was perfect. It had a quick change tool post, chucks, face plates, drive dogs, 12 tool holders with tools, lubricants in bottles, live and dead centers and drill chuck for the tail stock. All of this for $680. I looked for almost a year before I found this one. I looked at several others that were basically worn out for more money. I did purchase a new mill because I couldn't get a larger bridgeport style machine into my basement work shop, but those bridgeport clones can be had pretty inexpensively. My mill is a Grizzly G0759 that I have had for a few months now and I am very happy with it. I am finding that tooling and fixtures will likely eventually cost me more than the cost of the machines and the more you can make yourself the less it will cost, plus you get more experience while making. I am like you, relatively new to the hobby but learning a lot already and there are many great folks out there willing to share their experience. Welcome.

 

[Almega]

One more note: no matter what size equipment you get, it will be just slightly too small at some point. It is good to have friends with bigger equipment.