Courses for operation?

[timothybruce]

Hi everybody I have been working on getting into the 21st century and would love to know if anyone could recomend courses to take on how to program and operate cnc equipment for wood and cabinet manufacturing.

[Tsooko]

Hi Timothybruce
I am a newbie too, so here is my suggestions. I am a kind of learn as I go kinda guy. There is a lot of knowledge here on this forum and the people are pretty good at helping you out with specific questions.
That being said it will depend on where you live on what is available to you. Check out your community colleges. Here in Alberta we have Nait in Edmonton and Sait in Calgary. These are technical schools and may have cnc courses. Phone them or Google them. Some CC's will start a course for you if there is enough interest. Correspondence courses may be available to you, check your local school board.
I have seen companies offering video courses advertising on this forum but have no experiece with them, do a search.
Find a mentor, someone who is doing or is a retired machinest willing to teach you.
Get a job in a shop. They may be willing to train you.
I am finding that there are books out explaining cnc. Check out Amazon.com. I just ordered "cnc cookbook" advertized on this site, from Amazon.
Then you could just jump right in. Buy or build a machine, get the software and start asking question. Many software companies have training programs but of course they usually charge for this.
Hope this helps a little.
Good luck.

Ted