@NEWBIEonDUTY Welcome to one of the best communities on the internet! And thank you for the kind words! It is flattering to know my work inspired someone to take the plunge.
Excellent choice!! You are about to have a lot of fun with a highly capable machine. Your woodworking skills will transfer over to the “cnc side of things” rather quickly. All the basics of layout and what I call “stock awareness” aka your familiarity with creating things out of wood will help you tremendously. The more time you spend setting up the machine perfectly square and dialing in things such as tram and belt tension/step compensation the better, it pays off in the long run. Keep your machine as clean as possible and stay up on basic maintenance.
I make my frames from sticks of pine (for painted frames) and poplar (for stained frames) 1"x2" and 1"x3". I cut them down to rough length and use my Shapeoko to cut the rabbet (could just as easily be done on a router table), then mitered on the saw and glued/pin nailed together at the corners.
Ultimately it comes down to what suits the project (interior vs exterior, stained vs painted, etc) and what you are comfortable with. I prefer poplar because it is widely available, inexpensive, and it machines and takes stain and finishes wonderfully. I have used it on a lot of trim/cabinetry projects in the past so I am very comfortable with it. I also love maple and pecan, but I think you will find just about any hardwood milling will put a smile on your face once you get your feeds and speeds dialed in. I tend not to use pine for signs as it mills rather unreliably and is prone to fuzzy/stringy cuts and chip out. If it is being fully painted I like to use Forescolor MDF (aka Valchromat) as it is much much easier on cutters and finishes better than regular big box store MDF. Expanded PVC, cast acrylic, and HDPE are a lot of fun to chew through and you can’t go wrong using these for almost any type of basic signage. Choosing the “best wood” for the project is only half the battle. The other half, where I think a lot of people get frustrated on, is finishing. Any knowledge you have of coatings and finishes (and sanding) from your woodworking will help. And again, go with whatever the project calls for and you are most comfortable with. If you have a specific project in mind, shoot me a message and I will be happy to help you narrow down your choices. I will go ahead and say I don’t have a lot of experience milling exotic hardwoods and zero experience with metal. Take a look at @Vince.Fab and @CNCInspiration if you wanna see some mind-blowing work in metal. I particularly love Max’s use of metal and wood together.
More than specific youtube channels (I will get back to them in a second) I dove into the guides and tutorials on C3D’s website (the setup guide for the machine and the tutorials/fundamentals)
and consumed as much info from this forum as I possibly could. I can’t tell you how many troubleshooting threads (solved by @WillAdams and others) I must have read before my machine ever hit my doorstep, but a ton would be an understatement. Being able to quickly reference a thread I remembered reading a month prior (or bookmarked) helped me get through a lot of the “growing pains” pretty quickly.
Also, the tutorials and how-to sections of this forum are a gold mine of knowledge worth reading.
Instrumental to my learning was the development of our community manager @Julien 's e-book:
Shapeoko CNC A to Z
Consider it the bible of the Church of Chips. (All hail the mighty chip load!)
This post is also an excellent summation to look through:
https://community.carbide3d.com/t/a-selection-of-forum-threads/25253
In terms of youtube:
Carbide3d’s channel
The Carbide crash course is great if you are completely unfamiliar with the software.
if I remember more I will add them to this post later, I know I am forgetting a lot.
@Able Just two dumb monkeys (myself and a friend) and a whole lot of patience. We did take the top off prior to lifting. That particular one was made from cedar and I am proud to say, other than the lower “decking” boards, no fasteners were used. It is just a bunch of glued mortise and tenon joints. According to the customer it is still standing strong after years outside (under a porch roof).