Hi Rob,

good to see more Ph.D's on the forum, was starting to feel lonely :D.

Did mine in MechEng at Bristol Uni studying ultrasonic guided waves.

My advice would be to make use of the Universities machine shop as much as you can and make friends with the machinist there. They have stories to tell and may even allow you to learn on a real machine.

Looking forward to seeing your post on the X-carve

George