Well I got your book today - at first glance it is awesome - gonna take some serious study - thanks.

It is pretty amazing for a technical manual. Clear, spare verbage, very illustrative pictures, and 3-D drawings that all work together very well to explain the concepts and their execution. I'm not a machinist at all, but I understand what is in the book.
JCN

I have gotten a bit deeper into the book - EXCELLENT - I am no machinest - but the writing lets me understand (I think). The pics on the disk are great too.
I am sure I will have a bunch more questions as I go thru it more. And as I find some sort of Machinest or tool and die program here in San Antonio, something I can do at night or such.

I ordered a couple Wednesday, and mine showed up Saturday.
There is too much information for me to have anything to say yet.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying the book. Teal, you might check your local community college, they might have a basic machine course. If you want to vacation in sourthern Colorado for a week, the NRA summer classes are an option. I'm not teaching there any more, but don't let that stop you.

There's a chance that next summer that I will teach a tooling class at Montgomery Community College in Troy, North Carolina.

If you guys have an questions, here on this forum is a good place to ask them.

If your in Central California on the weekend of October 23rd & 24th, I have a booth at the "Men, Metal & Machines" show in Visalia. Stop by and say hello. It's at the Visalia Convention Center. It's a model engineering show.

Well - I have finished skim/reading teh book. I must admit much of it is a bit over my head but you have me all geared up for some courses in Trinidad.

1 question - I would be interested in a tool list - sine bars, measuring tools, and various things I could/should be buying now b4 I go to Trinidad (full time). Pick up here and there so I don't take such a financial hit at once? Maybe recomendations as to particular models and places to get them? I would like to give them out as hints for b-day, Christmas type gifts.

Mark - your type of work very closly matches the things I would like to do (when we talked on the phone I mentioned my penchant for walnut and blue) so I think the tooling should be pretty close to the things I need.

Thanks!!

Trinidad is a small town, and I don't want to say that it is at the end of the earth, but you can see it from there. Try to buy as much as possible before getting there. One thing I would do is attend some of the auctions for machine shop companies going out of business. These's, most likely, a local auctioneer that handles most of this trade. Get on his mailling list. I went to one a few weeks back and saw a Bridgeport go for $400. One thing, there a time to buy the best, and a time to buy an import. Brown & Sharp makes nice tools, but what you're going to build isn't flying to the moon. In the back of the book there is several tool companies listed, send in and get one of their catalogs. Once on their list, they will send you monthly sales fliers. Shop the sales and get the best prices possible. When you get the catalog and are ready to make a purchase send me an eamil with your choice and I'll give you some advice.

At this point, don't worry about cutters. Buy a 0-1 and 1-2 inch micrometers. Buy a 1-inch depth micrometer. Buy some dial indacators, like shown in the book. A sine bar and a gauge block set. Enco usually had a "B" set on sale for about $100 or so. I'm not sure the teachers at Trinidad will teach anything about sine bars. They're more of a basic machinist and gun parts changers.

This will get you started...

Thanks Mark - was looking to squirrle away some tools and such b4 I go ther full time (3 years) gives me time to figure some things out .

Teal,

You will enjoy Trinidad, great Elk hunting, and the NRA shooting center is just over the pass at Raton.

Mark