Anybody here a machinist?
 

A friend of mine owns a performance engine/tranny shop, and I've worked for him off and on over the last 3+ years when I get slow or bored at my own business. He currently outsources all his machining but wants to change that, so he's looking at buying a 3 axis CNC milling machine and/or lathe in the next few months, and down the road a 5/6 axis machine. He offered me the chance to come back on board there and learn to operate these machines, and it's something that I've been interested in for years, so I was wondering if anyone here happens to operate this kind of machinery. I see that member Stuart_D is, but he has not posted in 18+ months...anyone else?

If so, is this the kind of device that we could possibly operate from the manuals that come with it, or do I need to get some formal instruction? The owner is a really intelligent guy, I fancy myself to be of above average intelligence, and we wondered if we could just figure it out ourselves. The local community college offers a bunch of courses, and it looks like they cover a lot of ground, but I'd like to hear from anyone with practical experience as to whether I'd need to take 6 months of instruction to figure it out or not.

I in no way mean to disparage the amount of training and instruction that a machinist acquires over years of work by suggesting that we might figure it out otherwise. This is why I'm asking if I'm being naive in thinking we might :)