learning the armorer / smithing business

[Dave2]

Just wondering if anyone could give me some info on the armorer/smithing business.

Machinist experience helps too (my knowledge is 20+ years old now, so I'm not sure that counts any more).

I would still say that counts. Lathes, drill presses, etc - it's all the same. The only thing new is adding computers. In my machine shop class a few years ago, we were watching instructional videos from at least the 80s.

I'm sure you're right. I just don't have mill experience, just lathe and welding. I've always wanted to take a refresher and get some CNC experience, but I can't find anything in Austin.

This place has CNCs and I'm sure they would love to teach you how to use them:

http://atxhackerspace.org/wiki/Welcome_ ... space_Wiki

(FYI: the term "hacking" has nothing to do with malicious computer stuff)

Speaking of CNC machines and gunsmithing, there's a website dedicated to using CNC machines to, um, smith guns. They're not an "official" gunsmithing school or anything (in fact, I'll bet they've got a pretty long disclaimer), but the site has forum with over 5k members who are literally starting with a chunk of metal and building their own guns (or at least trying)... There's gotta be a lot of knowledge buried in those threads.

(I'm not affiliated with them; I'm just thinking about building my own CNC machine and am always looking for fun things to make with it if I ever getting around to pulling the trigger (no pun intended))