A brief history on my introduction to CNC

I fist became involved with cnc machinery in the fall of 2000 when I was informed the shop I was supervising would be receiving a Milltronics RH20 vertical mill. At that time I had 1 machinist with a background in cnc machine operation, he was also the subject matter expert (SME) who had advised the unit management during the machine procurement.

As is usually the case, within 2 months of receiving the machine I was informed he was being transferred to Albert the next spring. So the onus fell on me to learn the machine programming and operation ... and pass on the knowledge to the new techs

Then one day when looking for free G code software on the internet I stumbled across the Links page on the old Rutex site (spring 2001). It was the first time I had ever heard of people building their own machines as a hobby ... after 2 days of surfing the links I was hooked.

I ordered a 3-axis board from Dave Rigotti at HobbyCNC (back in the day when he cut his own), and started building my engraver. Between work, travel, family and the birth of my son it took me nearly 16 months to finish. And then I ran it virtually non-stop for 8 months trying to engrave on everything that didn't move ... and a few things that did!

If you think that building your own machine might be fun, check out the "Starting out In CNC" category on my Links page.