Ambitious newby

[brsanko]

Okay, now to address the rest of you kind sirs, I apologize for the previous unplesantness. I shared my ultimate goals because that is what motivates me, but currently the goals concerned are, setting up a workable shop to learn in and eventually move on to bigger and better things. My budget to begin with is about $10,000. I have no current plans to make any money with the shop, it purely a hobby. For me success is merely trying and learning. Please continue to give suggestions as to my engine design. Considering I have never so much as disassembled an engine does not my design show some decent ideas? I digress. I certainly do not have unlimited money (not yet anyway) but I do have a good supply of time. How that saying go about idle hands? I am getting a nice chunk of money and have business plans that should keep me in a fair supply of cash. I live simply and would probably be content to spend a good share of it on this hobby. So far I have deduced that I should get myself a lathe and a mill. What other accessories would be essential to begin making things out of aluminum. Perhaps someone could point me to some instructional projects to get me started as well. Yes, I will do some searches on my own as well, but I'm here now addressing you so I thought I'd throw that out there. I will block Jazz so you will not be interupted by my reactions to his stupidity anymore (sorry, I have mental problems, my brain is a high performance machine and when it malfunctions it can be disasterous) thank you all for your helpful advice.

[Jonathan]

So far I have deduced that I should get myself a lathe and a mill. What other accessories would be essential to begin making things out of aluminum.

For both the milling machine and lathe definitely get a decent size one if you have the space. I got a mini-lathe initially, but I really only used it during the school holidays as the bigger lathes at school were so much better that it just wasn't worth it. Although your budget would get a decent CNC mill and CNC lathe, presumably you'll want to get manual machines and convert them as quite apart from the cost saving you will learn so much more about how they work by to start with using them manually.

A pillar drill would be useful and wont set you back much compared to the rest. The milling machine will clearly work (better) for drilling, but often it's handy to use a normal pillar drill as it's quick to set up and means you don't have to interrupt the milling machine.

A metal-cutting bandsaw is invaluable if you're working with reasonable size aluminium bar, which could well be the case if you mill the block from solid. I won this one (so it was good for the money!) but there are many other good ones cheaper on eBay:

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster...aw-prod719253/