I would think these are valuable skills to be in house and thinking of a bigger unit the costs could be covered in the first year. Your limits would not just be props either but i'm sure you have thought of that. For what your costs are at the moment you could probable invest in a secondhand machine and save on build time. For the size of machine you need in length as long as you have the space a much more prudent machine should be considered. If you say business in this area is picking up then time factor is a large cost you need to reduce, this could offset some of the cost outlay?

You could even consider something like this? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CNC-ROUTER-ENG...item4a9ff4978a