Out of the experience of building my own machine, here is a quick evaluation of costs:
3 motors + controler board: 300$
Power Supply: 100$
MDF: 30$
Hardware: 20$
Aluminium angle, bearings, gas-pipe, ACME lead-screws: 200$
Dremel or Rotozip: between 30 and 100$
Spindle speed control: 50-100$
Cutters and bits: 50$ for a nice selection
Vacuum cleaner: 50$ for a big shop-vac
That's about it, so you should be good to build this under 1000$ or less if you can scrounge the MDF, bearings, motors (old laser printers) and already own a dremel. A good power supply may be done rewiring a microwave power supply or you may pick-up 28v AC (40v DC once rectified) transfos in printers as well. I made a power supply using 2 of those and have 40V DC 5.8 Amps for free!
Also, old printer shafts are sometimes big enough to use on the Z axis. This can save a few bucks there and the quality is better than gas-pipe. Minimum is 7/16 or 1/2 for a 10 inches shaft.
As for the assembly, tapping all those 1/4" holes is quite a job. Most people at some point revert to good quality flooring screws with a 1/8" guide hole as MDF would crack and split otherwise. At some places, I simply drilled thru and put a washer and nut in the back, MUCH more solid this way...
I'd recommend going with the JGRO plan as-is since I modified the original design and got into all kind of challenges to make it work...
Well, good luck, it seems all big and bloated but in the end it's not complicated, just complex a bit...
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