Be more impressed these days if someone said they’d done it on a manual mill!
I’m the shitest machinist in the world but yep, people are still well impressed when you make things by hand (using only an expensive machine). Like my artisan 9/10 speed mech adaptors- literally just a 10x10x6 block with a 5mm hole and a wee slot machined on it, you could do it by hand with a hacksaw and a file but ooooooooooh machined.
I got into small-scale 3d printing using a cheapo chinese printer, and the bit I like is that I can’t do the computer stuff at all- software does all the slicing etc for me, I can’t modify the firmware or really do anything clever with design. But building and improving the thing is easy. Whereas 90s people are all great at the software but find the mechanics terrifying, so they keep designing lovely things then printing them squint or wobbly because they can’t work an allen key and a spirit level
