Despite it being a good sized machine I normally only cut alloy and even then its mostly light plate etc but its always nice to have the extra capacity for when its needed. I'm not so worried about the extra's as we never include them in good projects in case the wife see's the bills but I agree that these can easily double the outlay. I was considering grafting one of those alloy Z axis from CNC4YOU and using a high speed cutter to avoid my knee moving problem but it’s hard to give up the rock solid ridgity of the current machine plus the use of all my 30 INT tooling. I'm going to drop into my local used machinery dealer and see what he's got anything more suitable for a swop deal. Thanks again for the replies.