Originally posted by Bob Carter:
...if you don't have a CMC, you should. Yes,even you,Jim...for anyone still on the fence(Jim),make a decision based on your needs and I promise you'll never look back with either machine."
Ok, Bob -- your gentle prodding is well taken. Yes, I'm still on the fence, but the fence is getting wobbly.
First, I wanted to give the market some time to gel. Wizard, the "original" CMC marketer, offers a good machine. It was the *best* machine just a few years ago, but today Wizard has been surpassed by others (for my purposs, anyway). How much of the "war of the improvements" among CMC makers remains to develop? I'd like my CMC to be a mature design, and avoid the early generations.
I narrowed my choices down to Fletcher and Eclipse over a year ago; Eclipse seems to have better hardware, but Fletcher has better software and a better reputation in our industry -- that's important: Kaibab might someday decide to move on to more profitable enterprises & abandon framing equipment, but Fletcher is too committed to the industry to abandon framers.
The Fletcher machine is looking better all the time. And it will probably be leased, not purchased.