[RoboChair]

I would suggest looking at craigslist for bigger, older, used equipment that comes with the associated tooling to get you started. Tooling can set you back quite a bit if you don't have a really solid plan, even though that one comes with tooling it may not be fantastic. It's not a bad machine, but I wouldn't buy it for our shop.

We just bought 14,000 pounds of machines(5 machines) for $7,500 just by watching for a good deal on craigslist. They were all bare machines and had a few bits missing, but we have similar tooling already which helps and a lot of student labor to fix em up real pretty like.

So now I know what it's like to move 3 Bridgeport mills, a Hardinge HC lathe, and a 3-ton engine lathe 100 miles with 2 rental trailers and move them through a 34 inch doorway like a bad game of Tetris.

If you are looking for quality tooling at amazing prices, I would suggest you check out Shars.com I have yet to encounter any product from them that didn't beat the pants off a name brand price wise while delivering a quality product. They don't make the best, but the do come close.

These are just my opinions, but you can get a huge amount of machine for a STUPID price if you know what you need and have some patience.

I'm sorry if I went on rambling, I just have a lot of machine on the brain these last couple of weeks.