If lack of money is your primary driving force then take a good look around.
Right now the used equipment market is flooded and there are awesome deals to be had. In the 5 auctions I have attended in the last 2 months the manual equipment brought a higher price than the CNC equipment did.
Manual equipment is sought after by hobbiests and this drives the price up simply because they can pay more. A company has to justify the return on the investment, which is tough to do on a manual machine.Look at machines between 1980 and 1990 for great prices.They are old enough that major manufacturers won't touch them unless they are specialized.Most job shops will skip them as well due to the slow speeds,limited controllers and lack of tool changers for most.For your application you can sacrifice machine time for initial start up savings.
Avoid brokers at all costs to save money.
I started my shop with 1 manual lathe and now have 3 manual lathes,2 cnc mills and a swiss type cnc lathe.I started it part time and now work in my shop full time.It can be done.  |