The tooling is usually the expensive part after the intial purchase, you could blow a fortune on the zillions of attachments, bits etc etc. Ebay is a good place to get a nice lathe or mill though- the old antique items are sturdy as you like, and work just as well- I miss my old school's Colchester lathe; weighed a few tons and had a 6 speed gear box that was adjusted by a pair of ring-handle things, beautiful machines...
