Jeremy:
Well, If I had to confirm something people told me in the beginning: expect to pay 1/3 again as much in "tooling": cutting bits and clamps and custom fixtures, MDF or other sacrificial bed, alignment and measuring devices, .... And that doesn't even get into keeping sufficient and varied stock on hand
Just exactly how you get there depends, of course, of where you're looking to go. Most/many do wood carving to amazing and beautiful effect. I'm a heathen in that regard, primarily hacking at blocks of aluminum to make something nifty. We and they have quite different tooling needs, but only I get to use TapMatic tapping heads
. By way of example, the ways I hold down a part are different than they typically use in woodworking. Neither is gooder or badly, they just meet different needs.
So,....what kinds of things are you looking to make? We draw the line at perpetual-motion or world-domination machines, and death-rays...we don't do death-rays.
But pretty much anything else, we''re happy to take a gander.
Welcome, and regards,
Thom