I have a Shoptask 2000 machine which is the heart of the Patriot machine. It's all manual and doesn't have the rising milling head or any of the right side bracing. I have had no serious problems with quality or reliability with it. It is not the stiffest machine in the world. To my surprise I find that I notice this more with the lathe than with the mill. The problem with stiffness isn't serious but a final "spring" pass is needed to get to final dimension with the lathe. On the whole it's a good machine for the money I paid for it. It is possible to do very good work on the machine and if I don't get good work then the fault is mine.
Someone will pipe up about it being a 3 in 1 machine rather than separate machines and about how you will spend so much time changing setups. I've worked with seperate machines in professional shop and you still have change the setup for every step. The 3 in 1 machines will force you take time to think about what you are going to do and plan the sequence of operations carefully. In long run the difference in time and effort is small.
I haven't had an opportunity to do any business with Shoptask in 10 years now but they were very helpful in the past.
Hope this helps,
Joe
