:D Thinking ahead to when I buy the Taig, I'm gonna need a tooling plate to bolt everything down to. What thickness would I need the plate to be, and what dimensions? I am guessing it's largely up to me, but I think I'm going to need more space when I go to mount the rotary table and tailstock. Does anyone have dimensions on the Sherline rotary table and tailstock? I want to keep the 12" of X travel, so I need 12" of workspace in the X, if not more.

I looked on Taig's website, and they said that the saddle was 3.5" by 18.5", so I am guessing I want to mimick those dimensions.

I was on LMS, and they have a tooling plate that measures 18.3" by 3.5", so I think I'd go around 20" by 3.5" for mine...Does that sound right? I need to fit the rotary table and a tailstock on there.
http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=2883
^ Link to the tooling plate on LMS.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, what type of aluminum should I get? Onlinemetals has these grades:
2024-T351

2024-T4

6061-T6

Thanks a lot, I appreciate it.
Burn

Look into http://www.metalexpress.net/cgi-bin/index.pl?mod=catalog&ac=acDisProdList&material=Aluminum&form=Plate&cat=mic6%20or%20equivalent&min=0&max=0 "mic6" cast and jig plate. Its not very expensive and I just got in a 1.5" thick x 18" long x 6" wide chunk, and as for the thickness, it is no more than 0.001" variance over the entire thing. It will be the new base for my mill.

Looks like the same stuff LMS is selling wtih a buncha threaded holes in it. :)