Sorry for not replying sooner. Been crazy busy renovating. Been too tired to even browse online at the end of the day.
DPittman, I am going into machining pretty much green.
Like the majority of Albertans, I worked many years in the oilfield. The money was good, but I always wished in the background that I'd gone a different path. I've always enjoyed building/fixing things.
I had a lot of practice doing that from growing up on a farm. It always bothered me that after all the time and work spent on a gas/oil well, once we packed up, nothing was left but a wellhead and lots of paperwork..
Anyways, in 2014, I was struck down by pneumonia that turned my blood septic, poisoning my body and brain badly. I wasn't supposed to be out of a wheelchair or be able to talk properly again.
Well, I'm plain too stubborn for that diagnosis. I still have to use a Walker to help my balance and my speech isn't 100% perfect, but I'm getting by.
Ok,on to machining talk.
I'm not able to work a regular job, I have to be able to set my own hours.
After passing over a few other ideas, I came to this. I'm working towards starting a small machinist and then gunsmith shop.
I've been working on/with guns almost my entire life and have slowly built a decent knowledge base. There aren't any machinist shops close to my town, so I think there is a good customer base with the farming, etc locally.
I do not want to sound egotistical here at all, but I've always been pretty good with mechanical things. I know it'll take time to learn enough about machining to do work for others, but I'm giving it a shot.
Here's the machines I bought, their on the ship headed this way.
I chose these because of the bigger motor, built in DRO's, and the size vs cost.
Did a lot of research on these and didn't find anything negative.
I've ordered a bunch of tooling,much more than I need to start, but I'm confident I'll use it eventually. The tooling is mostly from China, with exception to the measurement tools. I've slowly been buying higher end ones. I figure I can properly true and adjust the other tools if I know my measurements are accurate.
Sorry for the super long post, but this is why I'm here.
To glean knowledge from your experience.
I'll touch base once everything arrives and I can see what I've gotten myself into...
Ken
