Thanks for the advice Jazz. I generally agree with what you have said and I can see that my post may have sounded like it came from some blinkered fool blind to reality, but I would say (or hope!) that maybe my situation may be slightly different?....

I can't really start again as I didn't start in the first place! :) I acquired my machine as result of getting carried away on ebay. It was mainly in bits and there was no real info about it but I went for it anyway hoping that if I couldn't get it working I could sell it one for more than I paid.

Lucky for me some cleaning and bolting together was all that was needed :)

I don't think I have the skills (and with 3 kids certainly not the time!) required to put together the kind of machine I would love to own from scratch.

What do I use it for? Well, I have made a nice Aztec jobby for my dad, some vcut signs for friends, a drilling template for my fireplace and thin ply puzzle type toys for my children (I would also like to try some PCBs at some point). I am the first to admit that none of my projects have been perfect (far from it!), but all have been good enough for purpose and for the time and effort I put in.

The only issue I encounter is with the flexing which sometimes costs me time/wood/bits to try and workaround. If I could improve this without spending to much time/effort (£100 and a few hours?) then in my eyes, it would be worth it. But if its not possible to improve then I would still be happy with my machine and continue using it with workarounds.

Anyway, thanks again for replying :)