heli - The Heiz should be fine for that. I do mostly signs and clocks with mine, in wood. It's been used most weekends and some weekday evenings and has been utterly reliable as well as shrugging off my odd mistakes (the biggest problem I've had was blowing the fuse in the controller when I was a bit adventurous with a 25mm surfacing bit on a slab of solid oak). I've still yet to do any metalwork on it but the only 'problem' I forsee with that is the size of the bed giving some flex. For the small jobs I'll be doing in metal, I think as long as I machine near to the home corner, things should be OK - either that or I can take the bed out and put in a crossbar or two in to support it from beneath.