My last post might have come off as a bit negative but not intentionally so I wanted to discuss it in a bit more detail. There are many things CNC routers are good for. They are not just the magic wand to set up your own miniature factory. I mentioned in the last post that CNC is not good for production work and that templates are faster and more accurate. It is effectively used to make templates, molds for injection molding, patterns for casting and the like where the production speed is not that critical as you are only making a small number of items. The real use is for one-off items where it is not cost effective to tool up for a high volume production run or to be the tool to create the tools for a production run.
Complicated geometry is one of the best uses for CNC. Once you get past the whole rectilinear world of cabinet making, there are many complicated shapes that are hard to reproduce by manual methods. Smooth curves are not that easy to do by hand without lots of hard won skills. Getting three dimensional curves cut by hand that are smooth and match is not easy. It can be relatively easy with a CNC router or at least consistently.
Intricate cuts like scroll saw fretwork, inlay, and many other intricate things are easier to consistently do by CNC. You can do them by hand but unless you happen to enjoy that type of intricate work, it can be tiring and tedious to do by hand. Also, if you are doing structural work, the smoothness of curves makes a huge difference. When the curves are irregular, they don't distribute stress well. For production of circuit boards, it does not do nearly as well as the volume production methods. It does have the advantage of not needing the nasty chemicals.
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