[Brassmonky]

hello. ive been wanting to play with a mill for years and am finally going to dive in.

is there any good books you would recommend for learning techniques?

can anyone help me by listing the tooling id want to buy to get started.

i was going to buy a seigx3. is it worth it to get the next one up with the speed display on the head?

[Falcon50SS]

Brassmonky,

I would say the big difference with the SuperX3 is the tilting head more than the speed display. I have the plain X3 myself and I love it. And if you do dive in and get a mill I would really recommend a DRO unless you want to go all in and make it a CNC.
Good luck!

[Arich0908]

For the money you will be spending Ide get a G0704 from grizzly.
I am getting ready to buy a new machine and it will be my choice and has been for many others.
As far as movies That teach you the ins and outs there are some simple ones on you tube, but if your willing to spend money this is hands down the best movie I ever watched that taught something.
It shows you almost every operation and step in making and milling a piece. Teaches bought feeds and speeds. What tools do what and why.
You would just have to see it to understand.

http://machineshopcourse.com/letter/full_details.htm

[SSN Vet]

stream these videos from MITs course catalog...

They are very well done and cover a lot of basics.

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/142-machine-shop-1

[degreaser]

The swarfrat videos are pretty good. You can buy them at little machine shop or rent them at http://smartflix.com

Some very good books are the "Machinist's Bedside Reader" series by Guy Lautard. At last check, there were three volumes with the possibility of a fourth. They are loaded with tips, techniques and projects.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Machinists-Bedside-Reader-complete-Vols/dp/B003JGIK2C"]http://www.amazon.com/Machinists-Bedside-Reader-complete-Vols/dp/B003JGIK2C[/ame]

[allenj20]

Also check out the Glacern videos pretty well done.

http://www.glacern.com/videolounge

Books wise I like Machine Shop Trade Secrets

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Shop-Trade-Secrets-Manufacturing/dp/0831132272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277749822&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: Machine Shop Trade Secrets: A Guide to Manufacturing Machine Shop Practices (9780831132279): James A Harvey: Books[/ame]

Also I just picked this up it's a pricey hardback but it might be my new favorite book
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Sourcebook-Mechanical-Components-Parmley/dp/0070486174/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1277749881&sr=1-1-fkmr3"]Amazon.com: Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components (0639785319511): Robert Parmley: Books[/ame]

tooling wise

clamping kit
vise
some end mills
drill set
tap and die set
a set of dial or digital calipers
edge finder
dial test indicator
set of 123 blocks
set of parallels
R8 or MT3 collet set depending on milling machine taper

You can get some nice starter kits at Little Machine Shop www.littlemachineshop.com or at most of the tool houses like MSC www.mscdirect.com or Enco www.use-enco.com, some other places to check out shars tool www.shars.com or ebay.