New member, just bought my first mill

[pb4ugo]

Hi all. I just bought my first mill. It's a Minitech 11120.

I have zero experience with machining, cnc or manual. Many questions will eventually surface from me, and I extend a pre-emptive thank you.

First question to start: What are the best starter books? I'd like to study two or three before I get started.

[laszlozoltan]

machine shop trade secrets by james harvey. reasonable price, more conversational than technical, fairly easy to read with diagrams and pics.

[Fixittt]

what are you planning to machine? What are your goals? While alot of the trade secrets hold true throughout the gambit. Certain jobs require deviations from the norm.

[pb4ugo]

Thanks for the responses. I picked up Harvey's book and a copy of the Machinery Handbook today.

I'm mostly going to be cutting aluminum, perhaps some plastics as well. Small parts for R.C. cars.

[cadmonkey]

Welcome to the cult

We're both in the same boat but I've got my brother around who is an MSME and does all the R&D machining for his firm so that is my quick reference. Along with all the knowledge on here. I'm looking at making parts for R/C helis and I already have some local friends who are looking to have custom artwork and models cut of varying materials. I just finished my X3 converison and will be posting a website detailing my conversion approach soon. I purchased the domain and the hosting but just haven't had time to get any pages made yet.

Read as many threads here as you can - there's a lot buried in here - go as deep as you can into the dungeon