http://www.buildmoreworkshop.com/Buildmore...kshop_Home.html

I was watching TV tonight and I saw an interesting commercial. They describe this place as a fitness center for builders, weekend warriors, etc. From what I understand, you pay a certain amount per hour to use their machines. They have Lathes, CNC machine, Mills, Etc. The other great thing is that it is about 5 minutes from my house.

Me, just like most of you, have a huge amount of tools including metal lathes and such. Most of us don't have a CNC machine at home or even have access to use one. I don't know how to use one but I am sure they show you. It seems like it would be worth the money just to play around.

Has anyone ever used or heard of a place like this? Seems like a cool idea. I hope they get a lot of business so they stay around til I need them.

There is one outside of Portland OR in Tigard. I have heard good things.
Altho I've also heard its hard to get on some of the machines as they're busy. I think you have to reserve the big ones.
Its just a little too far away for me or I would sign up.


Some Community Colleges have adult machine shop/welding classes that are not much more than shop time.
They are very affordable and I have had great success using them in the past.

I would be very cautious. With that said:

The Metal user membership rates are not covering use of a CNC machine.
Just go to one of the educational trade schools in your area, sign up for the course and do your thing. Same thing, except a trade school won't be squeezing your gonads.
You can bet if you crash the shop tools at the link you asked about. You will be looking at big bucks. CNC requires a program to run the machines. Will they write it for each job. I doubt it because the program is very intense to just make a small move into the cutter. Wrong code and it will crash every time. It can't see unless the programmer write each step it moves.

MikeCool