Right. Even a machine like the Tormach 440, which is pretty close to the minimal steel-cutting machine, contains nearly 200kg of cast iron. That, plus lead scre

Right. Even a machine like the Tormach 440, which is pretty close to the minimal steel-cutting machine, contains nearly 200kg of cast iron. That, plus lead screws, motors, etc needed to move it around add up quickly. A while back I looked into building my own, and ended up with a Tormach because I couldn't compete on price. There are a couple near that price point now, but going transformatively cheaper seems very hard. Lathes are easier. The C4 class is both quite cheap and impressively capable (much more than the cheaper C3 mini lathe class).