On Friday, November 9, 2012 8:18:11 AM UTC-6, Mike B wrote:
It's been 30 years since I last used a lathe or milling machine.

I now need something that can do small scale machining (2 to 40 mm) of

fibreglass/epoxy and the occasional bit of stainless steel.

Slow cutting is OK as it's just a hobby thing. 0.1mm precision is probably good

enough.

I looked at some of the videos on youtube and some people made negative comments

about plastic gears and so on.

What other things should I watch for?

If you are buying new for a machine to work in that range, you just need to order a minilathe from Micromark, or possibly Grizzly.
It will do what you need, with some minor tweaking.