Greetings from South Texas

[choppachris]

Hello everyone! Very happy to find and become a part of this site. It seems my whole life has prepared me for becoming a good machinst, I grew up helping and working for my father in his auto body shop. I don't think there could have been any better training for my eventuall machining career, the body shop taught me how to think outside the box, to "adapt and overcome", there are allways suprises and challenges that force you to adapt the way you get the job done. I have allways been very artistic, I have allways taken pride in my work, and I have found that machining takes all of these skills. I started in a small shop in Pontchatula, Louisiana working on antique cnc machines. These old machines were actually good for teaching as they were more hands on than the later models. I ran the Okuma cnc lathes and later mastered the old Mazak H-14 Powercenter (horizontal mill) and the G&L horizontal mills.
I am now living in south Texas, and true to my past, i'm trying to work for my self again...My brother owns a buisness here and wants to invest in a machine shop, so we're going to give it the best shot we can. My plan isn't very far along yet, but our goal is to begin setting up shop in 6 months. All of our time until then will be spent researching and planning. I don't know what I want to run, or what kind of machines I want to use yet...but I do have a hobby that could influence what we do, lifted 4X4 Jeeps. I do know from past experience however that it's hard to make money with hobby-related buisnesses, so we'll see.
Any suggestions are welcome, tips, warnings, ect...And thank you all for contributing to a very informative site.