Right, Jazz, Your photos have thrown a real spanner in the works and given me a headache. I know im on the right path now with regards to the rails, but as for the design of the Z im lost. I can see your design as being a good way forward, but i just cant get a perseption in my head on how i can transpose this into my design.

I think my real problem is working out the vertical spacing of the pillow blocks on the rear plate & the length of the front plate and rails to get the spindle down to the table and to have roughly 100mm between the gantry at its lowest point in Z when the tool is raised, and the table. With the chinese spindle mount i know its adjustable to some degree but I just have no idea at this time writing this which is why I Think ill take some real time to come up with something.