To CNC? Or not to CNC?

[Gui Cavalcanti]

Wow.. you're talking about flying before you can walk there, man.

First off, a CNC is a huge investment, and one that I think shouldn't be done for a team-only shop. The smallest, bottom-of-the-barrel CNCs would run you between $15,000-20,000 used. Yes, they're fabulous tools (I ran one for our team this year in one of our sponsors' shops), but you have to think really hard before getting one.

Having a CNC is not really a question of what it can do, but rather how fast it can do it. You can do (pretty much) anything a CNC can do on a manual mill with the right attachments, but programming and running a CNC will be much faster and more accurate (Instead of .001" tolerances on a Bridgeport you'll get .0002" on a CNC...) for the same process.

If I were you, in a shop that only currently has a drill press, I'd get a new or used Bridgeport manual milling machine. If I had the funds, I'd also invest heavily in quality cutters, vises, and rotary/indexing tables. It'll run you less than just a out-of-box CNC and still give you much of the versatility, if slower.