Jet machines are quite functional.A milling machine is the heart of a machine shop.
If this is your first milling machine, expect to
spend and equal amount on the tooling you will need
to make it work. A clamping kit, an assortment of end mills
chucks and holders, a vice, a rotary table, an indexing head
and more will all be required to round out the purchase.
Horesepower translates into speed of material removal.
Bigger bits require greater power.
This is just a starter mill and you will want to upgrade
to something costing ten or twenty times as much when you
want to do production work as this one is all hand cranked
and requires a skilled operator to run it.
Did I mention that it cuts wood etc.? There are even machinable
ceramics which it can handle.
Again, expect to double the price (as a ballpark est.) on any
machine tool by the time it you are done. And plan to put it on
a solid foundation, not in your livingroom.
I use mine (a Jet VMM626) to make thermoplastic injection molds.