I want to get into a little machining and welding.
Unfortunately I have a smallish townhome that doesn’t leave me much room for a workshop, and even if I had the space, I’d probably have to go in to the tune of a few hundred if not thousands of dollars worth of machines, tooling, equipment, and materials pretty quickly, and I have other things to blow my money on.
I generally just like working with my hands, making things, figuring out problems, etc. and having some machining projects to figure out seems like a good way to fill in the gaps left by a pretty shitty math curriculum in my high school (I’ve probably learned more trig from watching some machining videos and only half paying attention than I did taking an actual trig class)
I also want to get into 3d printing, and probably will before I find space for a lathe and mill
But that kind of scratches two different itches for me. I know there’s a bit more to it, but pressing a button and letting the machine do most of the work doesn’t really appeal to me, I want to do it manually.
There’s also the issue of materials, I don’t often find myself needing/wanting a plastic part, but I do find myself wishing I could get some custom made metal pieces
The designing is involved to be sure, but it’s the actual hands-on experience of making a physical object that’s the fun part to me and with 3d printing and CNC that’s pretty hands-off by design. There’s some fine tuning, tinkering, and adjusting to do to the machines to be sure, but once the design is set and you have the machine dialed in, you’re mostly just letting the machine run and keeping an eye on it in case it starts making spaghetti.
I’d rather be the reason its accidentally making spaghetti.
I want to get into a little machining and welding.
Unfortunately I have a smallish townhome that doesn’t leave me much room for a workshop, and even if I had the space, I’d probably have to go in to the tune of a few hundred if not thousands of dollars worth of machines, tooling, equipment, and materials pretty quickly, and I have other things to blow my money on.
I generally just like working with my hands, making things, figuring out problems, etc. and having some machining projects to figure out seems like a good way to fill in the gaps left by a pretty shitty math curriculum in my high school (I’ve probably learned more trig from watching some machining videos and only half paying attention than I did taking an actual trig class)
Why not 3d print? I’ve taught myself a ton of CAD and sm now learning surface modeling. When I’m ready for a CNC, I’ll be ready.
I also want to get into 3d printing, and probably will before I find space for a lathe and mill
But that kind of scratches two different itches for me. I know there’s a bit more to it, but pressing a button and letting the machine do most of the work doesn’t really appeal to me, I want to do it manually.
There’s also the issue of materials, I don’t often find myself needing/wanting a plastic part, but I do find myself wishing I could get some custom made metal pieces
Nothing about 3D printing is set-and-forget when you’re designing from the ground up…
The designing is involved to be sure, but it’s the actual hands-on experience of making a physical object that’s the fun part to me and with 3d printing and CNC that’s pretty hands-off by design. There’s some fine tuning, tinkering, and adjusting to do to the machines to be sure, but once the design is set and you have the machine dialed in, you’re mostly just letting the machine run and keeping an eye on it in case it starts making spaghetti.
I’d rather be the reason its accidentally making spaghetti.