Quote Originally Posted by Wobblycogs View Post
A Z-axis travel of 200mm would be preferable. I dropped the Z-axis travel right down in order to maintain stiffness so that aluminium machining remains an option.
Your thinking is spot on in that having the cutting tool as close as possible to the bottom bearing on the Z-axis gives maximum possible stiffness as would be preferable especially for cutting harder materials, but this can still be achieved in a number of ways whilst still having the potential of longer travel... This includes having an adjustable height bed, or simply using some kind of a "box" to raise the workpiece closer to the cutter. And having the bearing blocks spaced as far apart as is practical naturally improves rigidity.

From other peeps posts I have an idea that delivery from LMB2008 takes 1-2 weeks.

Btw, there are a number of CNC machine components available for Sketchup via links in the following thread - http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/cad-ca...ponents-3.html