Hobbyist in south bay area / San Jose, seeking rental time on mills

Hello,

I'm a software engineer by day, and I got introduced to an old Tormach PCNC 1100 via a local maker space. I've been having an absolute blast with that, but I'm not sure where to go from here. The Tormach is often reserved by others, and it would be great to have access to another machine. I'm dreaming of building my own CNC mill someday.

There's a lot of industry in my area (Sunnyvale), and a lot of machine shops, but I doubt there's room for a hobbyist at any of them. What are my options? How can I learn more about machining on evenings and weekends, as someone who can't do a home shop right now?

Thanks!
Jacob

If Oakland's not too far to travel, you could come over and play with milling machines at my place. Can you speak Linux?

A:
Go with your original post to the actual machine shops in the area.
Offer 200$, to learn to set up their basic jobs off-shift.
Making flats, cubes, dimensioned stock.

1 of 4 might take you on.
After 3-4 evenings of 2-4 hours, they would likely offer to pay you 20$/hr to do so.
(A programmer with cnc experience gets different pay.)

At that point, you could get permission to do your stuff after hours.

Oakland is totally doable on weekends. That sounds awesome. I'll have to think up a bite size project.

I might give emailing the local machine shops a try. I've been browsing their equipment lists and some of them have the haas mini mill which seems similar to tormach pcnc

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Oh yeah: It just so happens I do speak the linux

Hi Jake, I'm in a similar situation -- software engineer by day, wannabe machinist by nights/weekends. I have a RF-45 that I would like to convert to CNC. I recently got a custom table welded up and I got the machine mounted on the table. I need to replace the motor or buy a phase converter, and I'm familiarizing myself with LinuxCNC to figure out the sensing and actuation side of things.

I can't really offer much in the way of rental time, but if you wanted to share thoughts and have a local connection, shoot me a DM and we can go from there.

I am having trouble in finding a machine shop to fabricate aluminum brackets for boat parts (hinges for a foldable trimaran).

Any recommendations where I should go, ideally South Bay?
the parts should be machined from 1/2' 6061 Aluminum.

Alternatively I would be looking for some time using a band saw and decent drill press. Milling it would be better.

Greetings
Chris