is it worth buying the mill stand or should i just build my own? i could fill the mill stand with concrete if necessary if it will save me a lot of fabrication.

When I bought a Grizzly G1007 (for non cnc work) I got the G5944 metal stand for it. It works fine if you're not using a flood coolant system. When I got my IH mill (for cnc work) I opted to build a table that was appropriate for flood coolant. It was easy to do, relatively inexpensive, and I was able to tailor it to my needs. I would not recommend use the metal stand if you ever plan on using flood coolant.

-Matt

The IH mill stand is pretty crappy. Let's leave it at that. The IH mill itself can be turned into a pretty capable CNC machine, but the stand is hopeless.