To the OP: Bill send me a PM and I'll give you my phone number. Easier to communicate that way.
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To the OP: Bill send me a PM and I'll give you my phone number. Easier to communicate that way.
PM sent
Zillions, and that will work well for some people, and not so well for others. I got my 7x10 HF mini-lathe in 2008, and muddled along with books and videos, and didn't accomplish much. In 2015 I took a class at my local technical college (Francis Tuttle Portland campus, for those who are local to me) and going mostly very much part time. I'm still in the class, now 6 years later, though I don't think 2020 should really count.Originally Posted by Sleeping Dog
One of the things you need very badly to learn is the feel of a correctly held caliper or micrometer. Not having that was quite a bit of my problem. I couldn't get accurate readings until I'd been doing it in class for a while. Not everyone will have that problem. Mr. Pete222, AvE, Abom77, Joe Pieczynski, Blondihacks, and a bunch of others on YouTube are all folks you need to look up, and follow. Also, gishooter's right about the advantages of taking a class, too. YMMV, as they say, but it's worth checking out both tracks. Despite the troubles I've been having with the one part I keep messing up, my instructor says I'm turning into a decent machinist. If I can, you can! Something we did in class, and that helped me tremendously, was to get a set of gauge blocks, and practice measuring stuff on them. You get blocks from . A good quality set is accurate to .00005" or better. Get to where you can measure to within .0001" accurately and consistently, and you'll be doing just fine. https://www.amazon.com/HFS-GRADE-GAU...dp/B00VQUYVC6/ is a better set than I have personally, right now, but not as good as the Fowler set they have in class. The set I have is a 36 piece set of round blocks, like the one cdcotools.com has for $55. Not as many pieces to practice on, but small enough to carry in my toolbox that I take to class. Theirs is called a Space Block 36 PC Set. Amazon has those, too, a bit more expensive than CDCO, where CDCO is a bit more expensive for their Gauge Block set, but the tolerance of them is .0000005". Take the class, and you don't need to buy as much equipment up front. My class, we needed a 6" dial caliper, and some books, total cost when I started was a bit over $100. Probably around $150 now. I bought a cheap dial caliper at the time. Good enough now that I am looking very hard at better calipers and micrometers, but I tested all of mine with their gauge blocks, and all of them were more accurate than I was at the time.
Bill
All good advise. Yahoo killed off all of their groups late last year, but a bunch of them moved to groups.io, including many of the metalworking and machinist groups. Go here to register so you can join some of the groups:https://groups.io/register Lots of good info, not all of which is strictly machining-related.
I own a few groups, moderate a few more, I'm a member of 50 groups, and there are hundreds I'm not yet involved with.
I own (co-own, actually, so there's someone else to keep things going when I can't anymore) Metal-Shapers-and-Planers, Mini-Lathes, Mini-Mills, and several others. They're good places to find info, and sometimes local mentors.
Bill
Sent you a reply with my number. Will be doing some work in shop this afternoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCf9YvM70NA
Scrounge, here is my program I went to.
I highly recommend getting an account at KBC tools, Sussex tool supply, or MSC. I know MSC offers a very good student discount. You can also usually order thru your schools account also.
https://www.francistuttle.edu/progra...logy-machining
That's my program, although what I'm doing is a subset of the full CNC program. I'm strictly doing precision manual machining. That is the first block for the CNC course. My course was $1800, the full CNC course was $4200 when I started in 2015. Don't know what it is now. I'm a Desert Storm vet, so got a tuition waiver. No cost to me except the books and dial caliper. I believe I spent a grand total of $86 for the required materials. Though I've gotten quite a bit of non-required stuff, too.
You'll note that we have a lot of older machines, which has been good for me. My home machines are also mostly older, and a great deal smaller. I love the Clausing Colchester 13" lathe, though they have CC 15" lathes, too. I'm pretty sure I couldn't get either of them in my shop successfully, as I don't think the slab would handle even the "little" CC 13" machine. It's only 2700#. My biggest lathe, the SB Heavy 10L, is only about 1000#, and my big drill press about 900#. Everything else is smaller. Usually a lot smaller.
Here in the OKC area we have a KP Supply. They also have a location in Tulsa, and Wholesale Tool has a facility there, too. I've bought stuff from KP Supply here. Tulsa is about a 2 hour drive, Grizzly, in Missouri, is only about a 5hour drive. I get flyers from MSC & Travers, among others, as well. One of the cool things here in Oklahoma, there is an old foundry in Guthrie, about half an hour from my home, where they hold the Southwestern Ironworkers Faire every May, though last year's was canceled, and this year might be, too. It's a swapmeet for metal and wood workers, and I've gotten a lot of small bits and bobs there. My birthday is in May, so a pocketful of whatever money I can scavenge from the budget and a trip to Guthrie is my usual birthday present to myself.
There is also a Metals Supermarket here, and they've been a good place to get some metal, and I have another metal yard a bit over a mile from my house. It's changed names & management several times since I've been here, so not sure what it's called now, but it's close by and they usually have off-cuts. I'm having a fair amount of fun as it is, and if my back would behave a bit, I'd be having more.
Bill
Good advice in here. I’m going to see if my community college offers these kind of classes...
I went through the school almost 20 years ago. I rarely use anything I learned in school on a day to day basis. I learned a lot more from working in different shops.
My advice would be take a class or two for the fundamentals and then attempt to find a mentor. Going through the whole school curriculum would be a waste in my opinion for a hobby or really even to work in the field. I honestly prefer to train machinists with no working knowledge but with the aptitude to understand and learn.
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The nearest class is booked and has a waiting list for only 6 people, fall term has not been finalized.
I had to wait a couple of months, but it was worth it. If you're not going full-time, a bit of a drive isn't that bad. I go two days a week. When I was working, it was a 75mile round trip, home to work, work to school, and back to home. Don't have to go to work anymore, so it's down to about 50 miles, these days. Friend of mine was going to a school an hour's drive one-way on a toll road from his house. Of course, that was a class where they were actually making a falling block rifle in class. My class you can't work on firearms parts.
Bill too.
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