I have got to the point were im getting frustrated with not having any real way of easily making small parts relatively accurately. I have a large pillar drill that is fine for holes and a lathe with a small vertical axis but its almost imposable to do anything properly on it. I dont have much to spend on a mill so not expecting much but wondering if i can get by with one of the small bench top ones that are available. Im thinking it will mainly be aluminium parts that i am going to need to do, simple jobs like making square plates with a few holes in and maybe machining a few lots and pockets. I was looking at the Clarke CMD300 but then stumbled across a used one of these for about £300 https://www.cromwell.co.uk/OSA2715500K

Is this sort of thing capable of doing any real work or are they little more than a toy? I supose in the future it may be cool to try and convert it to a cnc but im not worrying about that yet its more of a tool to help build my cnc and to possibly build a metal capable cnc in the future.

any advice would be great

many thanks