Look at the old CNCzone

[CNCadmin]

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cnczone.com/

[MIKE JEFFERS]

paul
without your site i wouldn't be doing this stuff (some would say i might have a life)
you should be proud of the community you gave life to
thank you.
mike

[CNCadmin]

Thanks, that means a lot!

[JavaDog]

So, what got you into CNC as a hobby? What made you decide to start this site?

[CNCadmin]

Well believe it or not in around 2000 I was reading a R/C heli mag and saw a CNC machine in a article and it was a Hobbycnc machine made from his plans. I call a buddy of mine and told him about buying the plans. He was like na just build one yourself. So I set off to design it. I spent hours looking on the net for info and never really found site that were all that helpful. I joined a few yahoo groups but hated the endless emails I had to ready through. So I relied on my friend who is a electronic engineer and has a full machine shop. So after much time I built my machine, we used drives that he found at the junk yard and go the machine cutting. Than after that, I sold the machine and got a mill, by than I got to thinking that their really was no one place to get all the info one would want to get into this type of hobby.

Their were so many site all over the Internet but it was so tiering looking and read especially when you needed a question answered. So after a trade show for R/C I when on the Internet and started to think of a great name to call my site. I spent from 5pm to 1am everyday once the site was up and I did that for a year and a half just working on promoting and hacking the site. I became a second job, and did take a lot of my time. I was amazed at the many people that contributed to the site with all their knowledge, and it would have been great to of had that back when I started. Now I have built a CNC router, converted a Mill and now I'm working on a CNC laser.

[JavaDog]

Wow, that is pretty cool that you rolled your own without any plans!

BTW, this site is what really got me into the hobby CNC addiction.

[CNCadmin]

Yes no plans it was however based off of the hobby cnc design. Here she is-

[HomeCNC]

Paul,

I remember you posting one little promotion for the Zone on that Yahoo group. I had been there for sometime and hated yahoo's ad's popping up all over the text I was trying to read. Once I saw what you were purposing, I made the switch and I have not been back to that group at all.

[DareBee]

I have found this site to be great for help and advice as a full blown business, I don't have time to do this stuff as a hobby.
Thanks Paul.

[Halfnutz]

Yes Paul, great job, hats off.

Paul S.
AKA Halfnutz

[ynneb]

Yep a relativly short time but tremendous growth.
In reading your testimony Paul that reminds me of what a guy said to me when he was describing what a CNC was. He said, the is nothing much in them, you could build one yourself. (Mind you thins guy has troubles even holding basic hand tools)
I blindly took his word for it and then discovered this site.

I recon I could have spent 100s of dollars on books and still not made a working machine. For the voluntry donation price towards this site it is a living book, that even answers questions you ask it. How good is that.

I bet when you started it, you never imagined its success?

Great to see its history in the link you provided. I did hope to be able to read further into it though, and see if Wallcrawler actually made any relivant posts in the early days

EDIT: Why does the word CNC automatically turn into a hyperlink?
EDIT: Homecnc, nice to meet others who hate yarpoo forums as much as me

[strat]

this site has been a great source of info and i'm not out of the game been awhile since i posted anything but just starting to get settled into a new home adding a shop in the basement and i now have a grizzly lathe and HF micro mill
and still have the router but got some igus rails to replace the old rods
this site has been a great help the info the pics its great !!!! just can't say thanks to everyone enough ....