Hybrid gantry

[routercnc]

My cnc machine has a classic raised moving gantry which works very well for cutting balsa, liteply, and ply. This layout gives great access for loading materials.

But on the rare occasion I've cut aluminium I needed to take slow shallow cuts because the sides are not super stiff. A better machine would be one with raised X axis rails, like the one posted by Florian some time ago, plus Jonathan more recently. These are without doubt superior machines, but I wondered if there was a middle ground with the stiffness of the raised X axis, but the easy access of the raised gantry.

Here is an idea I had recently along these lines. No plans to make anything like this, just though I'd post it to see if anyone has ever seen or made something similar.