Where did your team get its machine tools?

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Multiple options would be appreciated.

For 237, most of our tools that we started with back in the day were either already at the school (miller, lathe) and also at a sponsor's off site build place.
But, combined through out the 7 years the team has existed we have constanly brought new machines in through grants and other means to the school..
I believe we have about 3 millers, and 4 lathes in perfectly working order now.
And, last year we acquired some CNC controls for those lathes/millers as well..
I think. I'm not in the metals shop as often as I would like to be so I am only going by memory.
So yeah.. wow.. all of the above.

To clarify even more, our team is (and has always been) a 501c3 organization. This allows donations to the team to be used as a tax write off. This has helped the team acquire additional machines. I was able to get a Bridgeport miller donated to the team from where I work after they replaced it with a ProtoTrak. A local autobody shop donated the use of one of thier Chevrolet flatbed trucks for a few hours so we could move the Bridgeport from my place of work to the school where it now resides.
We don't have CNC controls, instead they are digital readouts. Both of them were acquired through a grant we got last year although we didn't have enough time to mount them on 2 of our 3 Bridgeports before build season started. With the additional money left over in the grant we were able to purchase a set of collets for the Bridgeports and some endmills from MSC.