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  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Ontario GTA West area meetup is planned for Saturday April 26th at Greasemonkeys shop in Aylmer Ontario. If you are interested and haven’t signed up yet, click here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

Howdy.

GummyMonster

GummyMonster

Ken
New here.
From Northwestern Alberta. I'm unable to work for others due to some physical problems after a medical emergency in 2014. This is the start of a business plan, which will hopefully end up with a small machining / gunsmith shop.
Just bought a 8 x 16" lathe and benchtop milling machine. They are about 45 days away from delivery.
Hoping to learn a lot on here, as well as get a Canadian perspective on buying tooling and supplies .
Thanks for letting me join.Ken
 
Hey nice to have you here, welcome. Tell us about your new lathe and milling machine ( if you care to) . Are they brand new? Where did you buy them from? How did you go about deciding on them? Do you have machining experience already or are you just going into this new venture "green"?
Lots of friendly and knowledgeable people on this forum that are happy to share their experiences.
 
Sorry for not replying sooner. Been crazy busy renovating. Been too tired to even browse online at the end of the day.
DPittman, I am going into machining pretty much green.
Like the majority of Albertans, I worked many years in the oilfield. The money was good, but I always wished in the background that I'd gone a different path. I've always enjoyed building/fixing things.
I had a lot of practice doing that from growing up on a farm. It always bothered me that after all the time and work spent on a gas/oil well, once we packed up, nothing was left but a wellhead and lots of paperwork..
Anyways, in 2014, I was struck down by pneumonia that turned my blood septic, poisoning my body and brain badly. I wasn't supposed to be out of a wheelchair or be able to talk properly again.
Well, I'm plain too stubborn for that diagnosis. I still have to use a Walker to help my balance and my speech isn't 100% perfect, but I'm getting by.
Ok,on to machining talk.
I'm not able to work a regular job, I have to be able to set my own hours.
After passing over a few other ideas, I came to this. I'm working towards starting a small machinist and then gunsmith shop.
I've been working on/with guns almost my entire life and have slowly built a decent knowledge base. There aren't any machinist shops close to my town, so I think there is a good customer base with the farming, etc locally.
I do not want to sound egotistical here at all, but I've always been pretty good with mechanical things. I know it'll take time to learn enough about machining to do work for others, but I'm giving it a shot.
Here's the machines I bought, their on the ship headed this way.
I chose these because of the bigger motor, built in DRO's, and the size vs cost.
Did a lot of research on these and didn't find anything negative.
I've ordered a bunch of tooling,much more than I need to start, but I'm confident I'll use it eventually. The tooling is mostly from China, with exception to the measurement tools. I've slowly been buying higher end ones. I figure I can properly true and adjust the other tools if I know my measurements are accurate.
Sorry for the super long post, but this is why I'm here.
To glean knowledge from your experience.
I'll touch base once everything arrives and I can see what I've gotten myself into...
Ken
 

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Well awesome and exciting! Good for you to have the balls to take on such an adventure. I wish you all the luck and fun you deserve.
 
Thanks everybody.I've actually been on the gunnutz forum for years.
I rarely go there anymore, as it's not a very friendly place. There's a big elitist attitude from a large group of members . I'll check out the gunsmith forum though, maybe it'll be better.
Ken
 
GummyMonster said:
Thanks everybody.I've actually been on the gunnutz forum for years.
I rarely go there anymore, as it's not a very friendly place. There's a big elitist attitude from a large group of members . I'll check out the gunsmith forum though, maybe it'll be better.
Ken
Click to expand...
Unfortunately that seems to happen with a lot of forums whether it's motorcycling, machining or whatever. We tend to be a fairly friendly bunch here but once and a while the discussions go south for a bit.
 
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