Advise on a possible purchase required.

[jimleach]

Hello

I am looking for some advise on the possible purchase of a cnc router. We are a small joinery / furniture shop, we currently have several products which require cnc'd components which we sub contract out. the guy who does them is very good and doesnt charge a great deal however its an hour round trip to him and im starting to think it would really benefit our business if we had our own machine. My personal experience of running one goes back about 15 years when i used to use an scm record 120.

I am now trying to work out is where best to invest what could be quite a lot of cash and get a machine that will be of real benefit and not a constant headache. Our ideal requirements are fairly simple and would be:
8x4 vacuum bed
Ability to accurately and consistently cut shapes out of upto 30mm birch ply
Face drill.
Relatively fast when running
Reliability

Although I am fairly technically minded and not really afraid of tinkering with machines or electronics we are just too busy to be doing this on a regular basis.

I know from memory that a 2nd hand SCM 120 would do everything i need and they seem to pop up fairly cheap at auction but these machines are now 20 year old and im unsure whether they would end up costing a fortune in maintenance. I am constantly being warned off chinese machines but these are generally by people selling 2nd hand old machines, so i guess im looking for advise from people who actually run them, ideally on a commercial level. I suppose i am most worried about buying one which requires a lot of work to get up and running and just not having the time to do it. and not getting the support or having problems acquiring spares.

Kind Regards

Jim