ok so sounding like the thing to do for now is to scrap the idea of being able to feed a full sheet of ply through and just focus on the aluminium thing and try and make it as compact as possible while keeping a 650 x 1270 table area Then to dream about a 3rd 8 x 4 machine in the distant future.

Any pictures of a 'strong' 600 x 900 size machine I should be using for inspiration?