This guide (or book?) couldn't be upvoted enough. With his comprehensive work I believe Michal has done more for home manufacturing and high quality hobbyist robotics than all 3d printing "revolutionary" and "disruptive" companies combined.
Is there a co-operative movement in the maker movement - one where the mysterious "Well equipped machine shop" is a co-op or subscription approach - it strikes me as very similar to airplane ownership - very few pilots own a whole aeroplane, and why should every maker own all they need
As an aside I have often felt this would be a fantastic Mythbusters franchise
There's at least one US company I know of called TechShop[1] who have 5 or 6 places around the US with pretty well equipped workshops, along with instruction/safety classes etc.
On the more DIY front, Hackerspaces[2] are a sort of community/timeshare approach to various equipment, and are much more widely spread,[3] but since they're largely community-driven, the range of stuff available varies widely.
I was a member of TechShop in the Bay area for a while. Unfortunately all their locations are just too far from my home and they have no plans to open a shop in the East Bay, but if you are a member of one, you are a member of all the locations. Two thumbs up.
I've done CNC machining at TechShop in San Jose. Very nice facility. Learned their CAD/CAM softwares pretty quickly, and found the whole process to be straightforward. In addition to CNC milling, they've got a water cutter, plasma cutter, router, laser cutter, and a bunch of non-cnc tools - mills, lathes, welders, cutters, saws etc.
For me, the biggest bonus of the 'subscription' approach is the interaction with other makers. I just learned a ton chatting with other people in the facility.
In Sydney Australia, check out Robots & Dinosaurs - http://www.robodino.org - a couple of cnc mills, a choice of several 3d printers, a laser cutter, and a whole bunch of other useful gear, and people happy to show you how to use them.
Maybe look into Fab Labs. They're not so much a franchise as they are a community outreach / educational thing. The program was started by MIT. The complete hardware specification totals to around $50,000, which isn't too bad.
The makerspace co-op near Victoria, BC, Canada is pretty good. They have a 3D printer, laser engraver, welding, woodworking, electronics, and a blacksmith shop (with casting furnace)
There are definitely Makerspaces and Hackerspaces around to facilitate this stuff. I'm a member of one called Site3[1] in Toronto. We have a variety of milling machines as well as a laser cutter, 3D printer and a new DIY 3-axis CNC that we are putting together right now. Membership works on a monthly fee like you might expect, and each member is given responsibilities for maintaining the shop. I think there are equivalent spaces emerging in many major cities in North America.
This is a really cool idea. One of the first problems you'd probably have to overcome though would be insurance. For pilots there are very strict certifications and strong personal incentives not to crash. With a modern Cnc machine it's very easy to cause more damage than you can afford to fix (if you can't afford the equipment in the first place) and you don't even have to put yourself in danger to do it.
Interestingly, MakerBot basically came out of one such collective (NYC Resistor).
I know several guys with CNC mills/lathes, so they're out there (not often in the city). Car clubs usually have one or two guys that have the requisite tools.
Metrix Create Space isn't a co-op, but they do sell memberships. It is open to the public from noon to midnight seven days a week in Seattle. http://metrixcreatespace.com
3rd Ward in Brooklyn has a wood shop and metal shop among other things (so not quite the FabLab of your dreams) but there are literally tons of places like this, it's just a matter of looking for them.
I'm working on a startup now to help people find these types of resources (often hackerspaces, but elsewhere too), so that people interested in DIY can make more things easily.
Some people make you wonder if they're not like Shakespeare is rumored to have been; so phenomenally productive that they might be a myth, an amalgamation of the work of several brilliant people, piled up behind one convenient name.
There is -something- very appealing to engineers about fixing or making physical stuff as a hobby after spending your work life in a virtual world where words create things.
I always thought it was my working class roots showing through but I've managed to collect a fairly complete set of metalworking, woodworking, automotive, electrical and HVAC tools over the years. The excuse at the time? I could learn it and do it myself and keep the tools forever for what it costs to pay someone hourly once. (note: if you're in the midst of a one-in-a-lifetime cash cow, just hire out this stuff and kick the hobby down the road.)
I have however run across certain trades that require developed skill not just a knack for learning quickly - among them: drywall floating, window tinting, body and paint. Others are highly scalable big jobs that just aren't suited to a one-man attack.
There is an element of burnout in that most of this physical work is a lot harder than what we all do for work!
Great article, I am glad MSDS was touched on before machining cast parts. The only thing I would add is that users should check MSDS before machining ANY material. There are a few exotic metal alloys whose dust can cause severe respiratory trauma.
I bought a used CNC mill off e-bay a while back and this is exactly the kind of resource I have been looking for to really get some use out of it. Still what we need is a really good open source CAM program. Most of them are proprietary, slow, or just useless on complex projects.
CNC machining is exactly the hobby I've wanted to develop. A well-timed post indeed. My eternal gratitude for your efforts to provide this information.
Patience is important. I bought a Sherline mill and converted it to a 4 axis CNC setup. The challenge with these small mills is rigidity vs material. So if you're making something in Aluminum for example you still need to make a lot of really fine cuts rather than just plowing in and throwing chips like you can on a 'real' mill. That said if you are willing to wait for it (and with a CNC setup its really a time tradeoff) you can get good results.
I just started doing CNC machining. So far I've just been making silly things, but feel free to message me if you've got questions. For the simple one-off stuff I've been doing mold-making is too much of a hassle, but the above guide certainly encourages me to try.
Dang. This is an amazing guide. This could have saved me so much time and money if I read it before buying a crappy mill and having to rebuild most of it from scratch.
On the other hand, I had a great time and learned lots by buying one of those cheap chinese "mini-mills" and slowly replacing all of the awful sand-cast pot metal parts with self-made machined steel parts.
It was kind of a rite of passage like assembling my own light sabre.
I became a mechanical engineer because I was fascinated by machine tools, but ended up writing software and devising printing algorithms for a living. This article is a treasure. Just the kind of field guide that people like me need to go back to the world of atoms and build stuff.
