When EOW resident, James Birbeck, sent me the link to a CNC machine that can be set up in 3 minutes, I thought it was a joke. Another toy, marvelled over by Youtubers but inaccessible to the majority of workshops. I’d already filed it in my brain as one to watch for future developments. But no, this was a fully fledged, portable machine capable of competing with other routers four times the price – distribution of which was backed by a world leading router manufacturer.

There was only one person to forward this to, Captain Cash, AKA Managing Director, Stuart Nairn – who immediately tried to find the catch with the product. For the last year, we’ve used a CNC machine as a carrot on a stick to prospective members, as a distant possibility when signing up.

It was time to put our money where our mouth was.

1 week later, it arrived. We’ve spent a large part of lockdown getting to know how to use vCarve Pro, working out the quirks that come with the hardware, learning how to use WINDOWS (!!!) and battling off resident makers who are gagging to use it too! Now, coming out of lockdown we feel confident enough to pass our experience onto our members.

• Novices to CNC work, specifically vCarve, must complete our in-depth Induction (£200). In the course of the training day, we’ll go through the nuts and bolts of the machine and it’s software as we work together to complete a test project.
• You’ll then have access to book 3 subsequent supervised  1 hour sessions, each £50.
• After that you’ll have unfettered access to book the machine as often as you like for an incredibly low price of £40 per hour. You’ll be amazed how much you can cut out in 1 hour!

– JJ McGregor