anyone near Toronto ON Canada

[paul nicholson]

Help, I am looking at new and or used machines. Are there any groups around me or anyone just tinkering...Some hands on would do me good. any help would be appreciated, videos, books etc...

[cbass]

Hi and welcome aboard,

Just a suggestion. Make appointments to go visit AXYZ

http://www.axyz.com/

and shopcam

http://shopcamrouters.com/index.htm


They may be out of yoou price range but I'm sure they'd be cool places to visit, and I think getting a demo of how they work would be very educational. They are both located around TO.

Carlo

[trubleshtr]

Hi Paul,
I am in the GTA, what size,type of machines are you looking at? and what is your planned use for them? If you need something big and heavy (like a bridgeport or bigger), I would sujest you pick up a buy/sell at your local corner store and you will find lots of ads for machine re-furbishers.

[Mcgyver]

hey Paul, also in TO, like trubleshtr said, what are you looking for? if you are looking for used industrial for a home shop (my preference), auctions and used machinery dealers are the main sources but its caveat emptor so you be well served to do a lot of looking and learning before acting. Some of the use machinery dealers are unbelievable, they’ll smear lipstick all over the pig and push you to pay 4x as much as it’s worth but unfortunately they’re the ones with the used tools. I guess I shouldn’t paint them all with the same brush but be aware. I’m in that space so infrequently I can’t really make recommendations from good and bad, but Ford machinery in Richmond Hill has a lot of smaller lathes etc, although he has stratospheric pricing imo.

buying used is a pita and takes a lot of time to find a machine in good shape at a good price, but keep in mind you are going to end up with a (hopefully in good shape) machine that sold for 10-20k once upon a time.

Check out TSME, Toronto Society of Model Engineers. As it’s a collection of home shop types, they’d be a good group to network with . It’s like $30 to join and they meet every month.

[paul nicholson]

Thanks Guys, I failed to mention I have previously worked with two AXYZ router tables for appx 7 years. I am now looking at small bench top or slightly larger machines. I have a lathe and a mill in sights. This is my target to learn. I have no prior experience on either machine.

[pstockley]

I am located just outside TO and am a member of TSME. I have a Tormach PCNC1100 cnc mill and retrofiting a Hardinge TFB, plus designing a small high precision cnc mill from scratch. Did I mention I have too many projects! There is a TSME meeting this Friday I will be going to. Its a good place to talk general metal working.

[trubleshtr]

I bought a small bench top mill from busy bee tools in mississauga (non cnc), and plan to cnc it one day. There are so many over the counter cnc packages available for them. I am currently building a bigger cnc mill from scratch also. They also sell lathes and band saws and such.

http://busybeetools.com/


Might be good to learn the manual operation first then the cnc side??? just a thought.

There is also a Harbour frieght store right across the niagara border in buffalo, litterly 10-15 minutes from the bridge, you may find something of interest there too?

http://www.harborfreight.com/

Where abouts do these TSME meetings occur? sounds interesting.

[Mcgyver]

The TSME board worked long and hard to come up with the most apropos meeting location, of course there was only one serious contender: 999 Queen Street W. for those not from Toronto that’s Toronto's most infamous mental hospital, a good old fashioned asylum from the mid 1800's. In fact it was so infamous the changed the name to the queen street mental health centre, and the 999 carried such a stigma they changed the address to 1001. No kidding.

Notwithstanding all tax payer’s money spent on the image makeover, once a month on a Friday evening, all kinds of deranged, challenged and frightening characters descend on the amphitheater (its a teaching hospital affiliated with UofT and has a couple of large amphitheaters)

[knowell2]

Hi everyone,

Just recently joined the this fine group of enthusiast and I was wondering if anyone can offer suggestions where I can get linear rails and ball screws in the GTA area preferably in the Markham area. My project is for a desktop cnc machine. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Noel

[paul nicholson]

Is it open to a non member? Can I just show up and be a spectator with out the humiliation... And shall I bring anything?

[pstockley]

Sure, you can just turn up. The meeting is at 8.00pm this Friday. Turns out I can't make this months meeting which is too bad.

[Steve@Reliance]

I'm from west of mississauga, 1001 Queen street dosen't look like that anymore!