AlexMuir

At the same time, I feel like it's a race as to whether Bitcoin comes tumbling down before it's revealed that a significant amount (most?) physical cash is being printed by adversaries, and the national mints merely act as a top-up/shredding service.

Read

- Read "Faster, Better, Cheaper in the History of Manufacturing" by Christoph Roser - it's an expensive book but gives a great overview of how we got to where we are in manufacturing. From stone tools through bronze casting, Venetian shipbuilders, Josiah Wedgwood, the Portsmouth Block Mill [0] and so on.

- Simon Winchester's "Precision" is a great book too - more concentrated on the emergence of machine tools which will be your BREAD AND BUTTER in a factory.

Steam engines are irrelevant to you but the tools they drove - the lathe, shaper, milling machine are still pretty much exactly the same. Big difference is instead of a man operating them they are CNC.

To know how to make stuff, you need to be able to look at anything and have a rough idea how it's made. What materials, what processes, and then you can figure out why it's done that way. You won't find a piece of solid wood wider than about 3" at Ikea. Why? Because wider wood is massively more expensive than narrow wood.

- Materials: metals, plastics. Wood and glass are a bit niche really.

- Essential machines: the bandsaw, angle grinder, drill press, the lathe, milling machine, angle grinder, tube bender, sheet metal brake.

- Joining metal: Welding, riveting, rivnuts, taps and dies.

- Casting and foundry work, blacksmithing (surprisingly accessible)

I'd say woodworking is a terrible entry into manufacturing. I went that way because it's useful for renovations. But working the wood is a craft, and I wish I'd started with fabrication and machining.

Likewise, very little is 3D printed at scale. It's great for prototyping and looking at things - that's about it. People will argue, but go to any big-box retailer and try to find something that's been 3D printed...