When I first read this forum, I thought I would find a few pro's and lots of hobby folks... It appears to be LOTS of highly experienced true professionals here... I am humbled to have this many talented folks who are willing to suggest things to a hobby/shop owner who is just starting out.
I worked in a machine shop as a college job in the early 1970's... enjoyed it, caught on quickly, and was trusted to make simple parts by the end of the summer. Thought about staying... however college was more important at the time.
In the back of my mind, I always wanted to have a hobby machine shop at home.
As happens to many of us; life got in the way of the things we want to do. I ended up in the home improvement business... did remodeling and repair, then turned it into a heating and AC company. Still run that.
Now, I have time to enjoy the things I wanted to do when I was younger. I have a pilots license and tinker with and fly Experimental aircraft (that means home built). My area of 'fun' in aviation is gyrocopters; thus the screen name of GA.Gyro. Here is a link to the site of our gyro club west of Atlanta:
www.peachstaterotorcraft.org
I bought a gyro in boxes last year, and realized I would either need to spend a lot of $$$ at a machine shop, or set up one, to build it as I wanted to... the latter won out.
I started mentioning to folks I would have a shop, if you need anything made, please consider me... I was surprised at the number of folks who responded. It appears I may actually get to follow my personal rule: A hobby MUST pay for itself (not easy to do).
Currently, I am waiting for a lathe and mill from QMT (Precision Matthews), highly recommend to look at those machines if one wants to buy new.
Matt and Ray do a great job of providing machines and customer support.
THX for having me at this forum, I can see I am in the company of some highly experienced pro's, hope some of their experience will rub off on me as the days and weeks and months go by.