I know there are a few out there who are interested in subtractive CNC (there are literally dozens of us!) but who may be a little bit intimidated by it. We’ve all seen our calendar app or Netflix account or some other piece of software go haywire suddenly and without warning – imagine if it was connected to a razor sharp cutter spinning at 20,000 RPM. Yikes.

I won’t lie, building a working CNC machine isn’t exactly a cakewalk, either. But reassuringly, neither is it rocket science. 3D printers, which we all know and love, are just dinky little CNC machines with an extruder on the business end instead of a twirly metal thing (the endmill in the case of a CNC mill).

Component-wise, stepper motors, ball screws, and control interfaces have evolved to the point you can get quality parts that fit together in predictable ways for commodity prices online. And once you have your machine up and running, you’ll be able to make just about anything - it is the ultimate DIY rush to be able to visualize, design, and create something new, robust, and beautiful out of a solid chunk of metal. Building that project and need a funky bracket that has to stand up to heat and torque? No problem. Decorative hat hook for Aunt Mabel? Get outta here.

“But Circularfish,” I hear you say, “that sounds great but I don’t even know what a ‘stepper motor’ is”. Never fear, popular machine tuber This Old Tony has created a series of videos demystifying CNC. He is fairly entertaining and, even if you have no intention of building a CNC mill, it will help you understand what is going on with your 3D printer when it decides to crash itself at 4am. Enjoy!