I have been vacuum forming for years now and a friend and myself are venturing into some other fields. We mainly build action figures and play sets. He has used CNC machines and plastic injection machines before and he does all the CAD work. We would like to produce our own plastic injection molds using a CNC machine. The molds will be no bigger than 4 inches by 4 inches. What type of CNC machine should we buy to make our own mold? Or should we build one?

I would also like to have a CNC machine to cut parts for vacuum forming. The parts would be no bigger than 18 x 24.

Any good leads on a reasonable plastic injection machine would be helpful. We could probably get by with a benchtop for now.

I am also looking to buy or build a large roller die cut machine. It seems the run 2000 to 5000. I feel like I could build one if I had some directions. Thanks