This has been an excellent thread!!! Very appropriate for me. I am, sometime within the next 4-6 weeks, going to drop some coin on my first mill. I have been reading, studying, watching videos etc. trying to decide what to get. Due to cost, from what I have read I wanted a square column mill. The cost of a full-size knee mill is prohibitive for me and I live in San Antonio, TX which apparently is not a great place to buy used mills. From what I read bigger is better, especially bigger build cube. I have read several posts from folks that bought other IH or Rong Fu clones that have said they wished they had bought the bigger CO machine. The only thing that gave me some pause was all of the accolades I see for Precision Matthews and their great customer service. But, at the end I have decided to go with the big CO machine as they are the most economical for the build size.
Reading this thread started to scare me off, but the more I read the better I felt about still going with CO. But, all of the different opinions and data is really helpful. And, now I know if I have some problems with the mill when I get it, not to freak out. So, thanks everyone for the info and discussion! Quite timely for me.
Bill M.