Thanks Andrew, I'll give Carbide Create a go and see if I can get somewhere with it. All I've managed to do so far is to rout out a few shapes and a some signage, all of which came either from the native CAM programs or via Inkscape but everything seems a bit hit and miss at the moment!

You're right about the ambition and budget thing, I'm already thinking about upgrades and MkII etc, but don't tell my Mrs!