[BugHunter]

I find it's just easiest to participate as you will and ignore as much confrontation as you can. We're all guilty of it occasionally, and forums would be boring as paint drying if there wasn't an occasional spat. But especially true with machining, there's tons of ways to accomplish any task and there's way too many opinions on what way is best. Even in different shops with different equipment, the answers can be different, and yet all still be correct (under some circumstances).

Listen to all opinions, even ones you know to be wrong. If you find someone who considers their opinion gospel, take a closer look at it before dismissing it out of hand. Ya just never know...

[dudley]

All the previous posts give a really good account of the machining forums I'm aware of.

Practical machinist is a wealth of knowledge and insight, but it's definitely not the friendliest place.
I've spent a lot of time searching there but have only posted a handful of times as I usually found good information with the search button.
It's a huge forum, and there are definitely some strong personalities in that place.
Because it's geared towards professionals, I imagine it could be difficult to get solid advice for perceived hobbyist questions.

As noddybrian said, there are probably experienced machinists here, I've been running lathes and mills since I was 16 so I'd participate in any machining threads.

[JohnMc]

Not on here every week but post any questions. I will try to answer when I can.
Practical machinist can be good. But I have seen some trolling besides the other just gruffness.

[DennisCA]

Can definitely agree on the PM forums in general, I usually don't post there much because of what the place is like. I usually post in the Deckel / euro mills subforum because I have a Deckel FP2 milling machine, and the atmosphere in that place is quite different from the rest of the forums. It's small place of skilled and knowledgeable individuals.

What PM is really good for is searching it's massive archives with google. I can find almost every topic I am looking for in that way and usually with an answer.

Homeshopmachinist is where I post most otherwise. And some non english forums.

[seagiant]

Hi,
The people at PM, were VERY helpful, when I built my "Stone Age", Rotary Phase Converter...

For my 3PH, BP Mill and my Wellsaw.

A lot of good info there to me over the years!

[walz10]

I tend to agree with the latest replies here PM has to much good information already there to ignore. Yeah some people there can be pricks but the information in between those posts is usually helpful. And like already mentioned whatever information you’re looking for is likely already there hobby and home machinist have been really helpful to me. If you’re new to machining then there’s YouTube channels like Tom’s techniques that are great sources of information as well.


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[G-ManBart]

Since this popped up again I realized that I left out the great experience I've had with the folks at Hobby Machinist...lots of friendly folks. The nice thing is you can ask simple, dumb questions and not get kicked in the teeth by the grouchy guys!