Howdy!
My name is Mike, and I've been lurking on this site for a few weeks. I thought I'd go ahead and introduce myself.
I got into machining when I was in the US Army. I worked in a Service and Recovery section, which had a bunch of different fabricating specialists lumped together: Canvas (me), body and fender, welders, glass, mechanics, electricians, electronics, and, of course, a machine shop. When I got there, the lazy couple of bozos before me didn't even have a sewing machine, so I had to go pick one out of the scrapyard (DRMO), and repair it. I had to make a few parts, which the machinist helped with, and I was hooked.
For a while my metalworking was limited to knifemaking by stock removal. I got okay at that, and managed to sell a few, but when I got out, I lacked workshop space until recently, so I let all of that slide.
Fast forward to today, when I have a small shed, a 7x12" chinese lathe, and a drill press converted to a "milling machine" that may set your hair on end with fright. I just purchased a 12x16" shed, and once it's up, and the fun money fills back up, there'll be a proper milling machine in the stable.
So far what I've worked on are small motorcycle parts, and some tooling for the lathe.
I have an unfortunate habit of leaving things unfinished once they are in a workable state. I'm working on that, but so far haven't finished it!
Here's a milling attachment I made for my lathe:
Here's my poor man's milling setup:
Current projects I'm working on are a couple of replacement spokes for an older motorcycle, a single shot .357 rifle, and, in the design phase only, a very small, simple shaper/slotter.
I'm very excited by this site, and some of the interesting designs, techniques, and problem solving.
