Another new member

[Graculus]

Hello all, stumbled across this site looking for information on drillbits of all things, I had a look around and decided to join!
Not massively experienced with wood-butchery but lots of experience of metalworking and 'bush mechanics' - I lived & worked out of UK for many years, much of it in black Africa, FYR, Far east etc. etc.
Now settled back in UK and looking to set up a better home workshop than I currently suffer, the current Mrs. has designs on taking up woodturning and we want to get set up and a better idea of what we need (and don't need) before retirement - with current legislation that's a minimum of nine years away, so not that long to spend our hard-earned on nice-to-haves... Metal-bashing wise, we have a decent line in MIG/MAG, TIG & MMA welders together with a selection of angry grinders, metal bandsaw, pillar drill, bench grinder etc. and a lifetime of using them (not always correctly/appropriately!). Until we have a dedicated workshop, we'll get by but I'd like to explore lathe & miller options - although I've heard that if you've only space for one, then a lathe is the way to go - anyway, enough rambling for now!
Cheers.

 

[sawtooth-9]

Welcome.
Whether you need a lathe / mill would depend on the types of things you would like to build.
In my experience, both a lathe AND mill are a must.
It may be possible to do small milling jobs in a decent sized lathe, but it's very restrictive.
In a lathe, the job turns and the tool is "fixed". In a mill the job is "fixed" and the tool turns.
My workshop is set up for both metal and wood - if you look at my post entitled TWISTED, you can see why I needed both wood and metal lathe and a mill.
Good luck

 

[Graculus]

Thanks - mostly I'm fabricating odds & sods for work (Vehicle tech.) with a small sideline in casting repairs - mates of mates sort of thing.... Things I've had to make include:- nitrogen bottle trolley, small slide hammer for M6 internal thread, various 'helpers' for positioning connectors on EV batteries, various press adaptors for bearings & bushes etc. (all of which we should have anyway but seeing as they pay me for them....) I've had to farm out 'turned work', nothing excessive, just the occasional transmission filling adaptor, things like that. I agree, a mill & a lathe would be the ideal 'cover all bases' solution - I've used both in the past (and managed to 'get by' when neither are available), the balance is between nice-to-have & need-to-have, which is entirely dependent upon space, cost and projected use.... so that's all the balls currently in the air - oh, and the current Mrs. wants space for her stuff too....

 

[Graculus]

Well it seems my questioning of the hard sell on membership has been blackholed. So I'll leave you with this screenshot.

Please delete my profile, I'll not be needing it again.