Thanks guys.

I realise I'm gonna make a few botch-jobs in order to learn things. So long as all my body-parts stay where they are, it doesn't matter if I nuke a piece of work.

I'm headed off to an Aluminium place on Saturday to buy a couple of bucket-loads of scrap to start turning on the Lathe and play with on the Mill. I'll probably stick with Aluminium for a while, since that's probably what I'll be using mostly for aircraft.

I'll have to look up our local TAFE's (Technical And Further Education) and see what 'shop' classes they're running these days. I did a basic welding course (Oxy/Stick/Mig) with them a few years ago, and I couldn't believe how cheap they were. A hundred or so bucks, and all I had to do was turn up. It was like an 8 week course (2 nights a week?), and they supplied absolutely everything apart from my overalls. Lots of 1-on-1 tuition too, and you could stay after class to practice as well. Brilliant, I thought.

I have given YouTube a good working over, but most of the Lathe & Mill stuff on there is either advertising, or CNC demo's - I didn't seem to find a lot of tutorial-based stuff.

I found the Hong Kong Uni one before, and it's pretty basic. The web.mit.edu site looks a bit more 'into it', so I'll spend some time on there.

This may sound silly, but I'm as excited as a little kid to finally get my hands on the machines tomorrow.

And a big thankyou to you guys for sharing your knowledge and experience. Be prepared for a zillion dumb-*** questions down the track Lol. But no, seriously, thanks heaps...

BJ