Mike made a very good point that I can personally appreciate. I am primarily a machinist/tool & die person who did not touch a CNC machine until a dozen years into my career.
Having a mastery of manual machines and knowing the nuances and quirks of materials, tooling, feeds and speeds, etc that were garnered from doing everything the "hard way" gave me a tremendous advantage.
One must learn to crawl before they can walk, as the old saying goes.
You can read about CNC, but in my opinion that's almost worse than useless. Do you have a local tech school that gives 1 or 2 year "degrees" in machine shop? If so, are night classes available? Are there any part-time apprentice positions in local manufacturing companies? Do not rule out learning manual machining first, it is a good foundation for all that's to follow.
Good luck in your endeavor!
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
