Question for the community and any who may have experience in "Routers"......

wanting to help a friend look into the options, and neither of us have experience in the manufacturers of cnc routers, to know what to look into...

Here's some criteria..

I don't want "DIY" systems... (It needs to have some industrial "rigidity" for lack of a better description")

Minimum 36 inch travels for x/y. so a 5 x 7 or 9 is good....

Mostly a cabinet shop, but the interest will be more in "custom" stuff, like 3d relief work and one off's, as opposed to automation of cutting cabinet framework.. (But of course, that's also a good capability to look at having with the system)

Woods, hardwoods, plastics etc.. Wouldn't mind "metal" capable ( Is metal really an option for a "router"????)


Trying to look into price range options first.... The first 2 makers that caught my eye were Thermwood and ShopSabre....

The Thermwood looks for sure "industrial strength" and the models seem to be somewhere like 60K to a bit over 100k...

The ShopSabres do look "industrial", but the model seem to be more like 10k to 30k..

I may be comparing apples to oranges? Like the thermwood models I looked at may have a bunch of "automation" stuff I didn't see, that really is not what I'd be looking for as a starting base...

Maybe the 2 just are not comparable with regard to quality, etc?

I basically was working off the impression that 30k can get a good, industrial heavy duty machine capable of quality work...


If anyone can chime in to give me some good experienced insight would help... "Makers/Models" etc... Questions with more criteria needed, etc.... A realistic price range to get what I'm describing etc...

Thanks in advance...

Burr