Buying guides
9 guides, and which question each one settles
These are written from machines we have bought, shipped and cut with, not from a keyword list. Each one answers a question a buyer actually asked us, usually after it had already cost them a broken cutter or a machine that could not do the job.
Start here if you are new to this
Three questions come up before any others, and in this order: what do I need to cut, what will it really cost delivered, and how do I know the machine is what the listing says. The guides below are grouped that way rather than alphabetically.
What you need to cut
Desktop CNC machines for metal
Read first if metal is the point. What each class of machine will actually cut, and where the honest limits are.
CNC router vs CNC mill
Read before you shortlist anything. They look similar and are built around opposite assumptions.
Feeds and speeds on a desktop machine
Read when tools keep breaking. Calculators assume a machine that does not flex; yours does.
What it costs, all in
Buying your first CNC router
Read if this is your first machine. Four decisions, in order, that get you to the right one.
Entry-level CNC router budget
Read when setting a budget. The machine is roughly two-thirds of what you will spend in the first month.
What a CNC machine costs delivered
Read before comparing prices. A machine prices on weight, not volume, which changes the whole calculation.
Getting it here in one piece
ATC spindles on desktop machines
Read if an ATC is on the wish list. What it needs, what it costs in rigidity, and when manual is better engineering.
Shipping a machine tool from China
Read before it is crated. Machine tools break in specific, predictable, preventable places.
Before your money moves
What these guides are not
They are not a substitute for reading your own listing. Every machine has a detail no general guide covers — a seller who is a trading company, a CE file that belongs to a different model number, a revision that changed after the photographs were taken. The guides tell you what to look for. Looking is still the work.
Or skip the reading
Tell us what you need to cut and we will do the looking. The specification, the supplier check and an honest read on whether the machine can do the job cost nothing.
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