[B Schein]

I design in solidworks and AutoCad depends on the complexity of the part and program with master cam. The thing is you are going to spend more on programs than you can get a machine for the full 3D surface milling version of master cam I use cost like $18,000 and solidworks or pro-e will cost you a couple grand min. Unless you are all ready a machinist I think it would be hard to start a shop from scratch and be efficient enough to make money at it. There is so much more involved in it then just having cnc machine. You still need manual macheins to do simple task that are to cumbersome to do in a cnc and you always need them to modify tooling and build setups I dont think I could do with out a bridgeport and small manual lathe no mater how many cnc's I have access to. If I were asked to set up a shop from scratch buy all the macheins and associated tooling I don't think I could do it for less than $75,000-$100,000 buying mostly used.