Been doing a lot of reading on the e/g stuff. It looks complicated, but it also looks like it is doable without a whole lot of expensive equipment if you put the time in for research.QUOTE]
Dead right! Don't be daunted by the sheer scale of what you trying to achieve, it is very doable, BUT, as you are no doubt starting to find out, it is a massive amount of research, and reading between the lines with others advice, experiences, and qualified opinions.
The best advice I would give is keep it as simple as possible to avoid ending up with a stalled or dropped project. Aim for using as good as possible, materials for the build to avoid heartache with a bad finish design or end result. Obviously this will mean your budget may not be as low as you anticipate. Part of the learning process of building a CNC whatever, is finding out afterwards the many things you did wrong with the materials used, the design of the machine, the greater than expected forces involved, etc, etc. This is why the practice of recommending to people starting out on a XX' x XX' build that they start out with a much smaller X' x X' first is so valuable.
I started out planning an 8' x 4' originally, but the more I learnt of what was involved, the more daunting it became, I ended up buying a few small machines, and over the last few years have learnt so much from having them I'm now in a position to tackle the big one next year with much more knowledge.
Trawl youtube and this site, apart from simpsons36 you mentioned, some of the great youtube users I regularly watch for machining, milling, feedrates, tooling, build info, etc, are:
3sectionmonk
atienzalouie
blmartech
cnccookbook
cncdiy
cncnutz
cnctapintok
cncwoodworker
hossmachine (awesome stuff here!)
jonblissett
marcelmx3
mdavidlem
mindhive
mrpete222 (mostly lathe, but LOADS of good cutting/tooling info)
myfordboy (great casting info)
neo7cnc.com (great all round cnc stuff)
saunixcomp (you'll like this one!)
tormachllc (of course!)
zerodegreec
zhazka123 (just cause it's a beautiful machine!)
If the cnc machine links don't seem applicable, it helps to think of a mill as a very rigid, fixed gantry, 3 axis cnc machine
Of course, the people here are a fantastic resource, and hoss and ger21 to name just the most prominent ones I know of, are probably the very best and knowledgeable resource you could get here, go through their threads and you'll learn heaps. Hoss especially should really have his own "Pimp my Mill" TV show!
Go slow, look at as many pictures and videos of others work and machines as possible, to see what they did right, or wrong, and mentally picture how you could do it better or differently, using the same or other materials. A good case in point, if you had to flat surface a molded base, if you have a router you could easily rig up on a firm and flat surface, (a decent kitchen table top would be adequate in most cases) a sliding frame or sled to use the router overhead, such as shown here:
Router Sled Planer
Obviously using some good machined aluminium as the guides gives a more accurate result, but you get the idea, there's loads of ways to simply achieve a result in lieu of the more approriate tools.
cheers,
Ian