I bought an openbuilds machine a few years ago and use Vectric software for the designing. My machine required assembly which saved some money and taught me everything about the machine. It uses a Dewalt 611 router. I have the 1500x1500 machine because I wanted to have the larger bed for whatever I might want to work with, but a smaller bench top machine would be easy and cheap for doing grips and smaller stuff for sure. There are certainly nicer machines than mine out there, just depends on your budget I suppose. Mine is quite capable of doing some nice 3D stuff. (Technically 2.5D)