Rob, having recently acquired a small CNC mill I can endorse JS's comments absolutely! Even for simple jobs, it is so quick to use a Mach 3 wizard, for example to drill a couple of holes in each of two plates that had to line up exactly as I had to do last night. Just clamp down the part on a bit of MDF against a fence on the table, reference the mill to the corner and surface, then fire off the wizard. Result – holes in exactly the right place on both parts. By manual methods I'd have had to fiddle around clamping them together (they were different sizes), how to hold the combination, locating the drill, and all the rest of the palaver. No Gcode writing involved at all.

The CNC mill I bought is a Denford Novamill which is an older design but built like a proper industrial machine with ballscrews etc, and I've quickly found that it does exactly what you tell it to, you don't need to worry about backlash etc. I would recommend either buying something with ballscrews of good quality, or retrofitting them to a machine. If you buy a machine I would recommend a Denford Novamill or a Triac (?) if you want something a bit bigger. However they are a bit old so the controllers run under old versions of Windows – but anyway I had to build a new controller for mine to work with Mach3 as it had got separated from its electronics. I also have a VMB big mill but I didn't want to start rebuilding that.

Here's an idea – you could get a bigger manual mill (X3?) and convert your Amolco to CNC? I used to have an Amolco and was quite impressed with it and it did strike me that it could easily be converted as there's quite a lot of room for ballscrews. And there's lots of space in the base for the electronics. One worthwhile mod that I did was an column extension which gave at least 2 additional inches of working height.

If you have any questions about CNC I'm happy to answer from my so far limited experience – as well as building the controller for the Novamill I've converted a Super 7.

Cheers, John.

As someone new to engineering, I would recommend going for a manual machine and gaining a good understanding of how materials react to being machined. The bridgeport in the form of a turret mill would be an ideal choice as it is a very robust machine and in the fullness of time you can add things like dividing heads and rotary table to it to make it even more versatile. This is not to say that I am anti CNC but I think (sure) a learner should cut thier teeth on manual equipment first. Good luck with your choice. Jim.

You could always do what I did and CNC your bridgeport when you're ready