Quote Originally Posted by brumster View Post
The choice for me is whether writing off £500-1000 on a crappy Chinese thing is a valuable learning experience versus investing the time and money into a £1500 DIY job first time - accepting that I might get things wrong, learn the hard expensive way
The metal work is only a small portion of the expense. The real expense and BIG chance of wasting money is buying the wrong stuff. Cut corners here and you will without doubt waste money and cost more than buying decent gear in first place.! . . . It happens time and time again.!

Like wise you don't need massive tool collection either. Many great machines have been built with with just Drill press and hand tools. My first machine was built using just Drill press and hand held router. It wasn't pretty but was very accurate and cut nothing but Aluminium including this.


Infact Joe on this forum is doing a very nice job with Minimal tools, he's also cutting alumnium with hand held router. http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/4513-...ghlight=router