Telescope Reviews: 20 inch RC Robitic Build...a TEAM Effort....

To Joe and anyone else possibly interested in aquiring new tools and
and skills this write up is for you...

The general question as I understand it is how did I gain the skills and
tools to be able to do what I am now doing with this project.

I have long been interested in designing things. But just designing
and then having to go and pay someone else to make the parts was
both expensive and time consuming...time consuming, as first I had
to generate the income, and second then had to wait for the part to
hopefully be completed correctly the first time...

Thus, I decided that if I were to ever be able to overcome these
obsticales...I should learn to do the work myself.

First, and this was before the availability of the internet...I purchased
several good beganing machining books and read everything about
the types of things that interested me in machining...Much of what
I read made Little since at the time, but over time became more and
more useful.

I started with the purchase of a round column mill/drill to be able to
drill and mill small parts. That was Ok for a start, but now I would
recommend a square column mill, as the collumn cannot rotate when
doing heavier cuts...

Oh, and a word to the wise...Don't think that once you have the
big machine like a mill of lathe that your home free dollar wise.

Over time, you will likely spend 2-3 times the price of the machine
on tooling, but again that is over time and you need purchase
only what you need to do a specific job or task at hand.

My second machine was a little combo lathe/mill that did not
have any threading capacity...Ok for about 6 months, but when
I could afford it, I purchased the Enco 12 x 36 lathe seen doing
the Collimation Tube...that was in 1992.

The size of the machine that you purchase depends on what
and where ones interest lays. If it is model airplane engines
the Shurline (sp?) lathes and mills are just fine...

I guess it also depends on the area you have to be able to
setup the machines and your budget...

I'll be the first to admit, of the machines in the machine part
of the shop, the Bridgeport Mill, Hardinge Toolroom lathe,
Harig surface grinder, and Hurco CNC mill, along with
countless accessories were purchased for pennies on the
dollar new prices on Ebay.

In the past few years, I'd keep a list of what tooling or machines
that I would like and how much they would be worth to me in
dollars that I would be willing to spend. Then I would wait
until the item at MY price point came along and try to buy it
then...

That's also when I learned about Skype, the Ebay servise
that allows one to place a bid that will be entered just seconds
before the end of bidding. I do not have to even watch the
auction process and thus do not up bid my item.

If it closes at 2 am my time, my bid goes in at the last seconds
and if I win Ok, if not, I have not spent more than I wanted and
will normally find the same thing maybe even cheaper the
next time....

As far a learning all the the skills that I use so far, they have
all be learned through reading or self taught through trial and
error. I'd say, that I progress with each and every project as
you build more and more confidence. Yes, sometimes you
ruin a part, but each time that happens, hopefully you learn
from the experiance...like, don't do complicated things late
in the afternoon when you are tired...

It's far better to wait until morning when one is fresh and
very clear headed to do the complicated task...but, again
this is something that is normally learned the hard way a
few times and from what I have seen, not taught well for
what ever reason.

I hope this helps those of you interested. If you have
further specific questions I'll try to answer them if possible.

By the way, Most of the nicer equipment machinery has only
been aquired in the past 5 years...

Thanks for all the nice comments.

Best Regards,

Preston

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A few I enjoy,
and a few more in the works ;<)