Small and rigid router
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One of these: https://www.cncstepusa.com/cnc-router-spindle-kress-800 ? It would work for wood, as long as you took light cuts with small tools. But it seems a bit out of scale for a machine that's "solid steel and weighing several hundred kilograms", especially if you wanted to cut steel. If you wanted to do engraving or something, it could be used as a secondary spindle, but I'd think the main one could be a lot bigger.
There's a division between spindles intended for routing wood and those used for milling steel. The former go much faster but have less torque, especially at low speeds (they usually aren't recommended to run too slow, since they depend on internal fans for cooling and have hardly any torque when slow). Spindles used for steel go much slower; often they're run off a pulley cluster instead of being a single unit, which allows the motor to run at a fixed speed and multiply torque when the tool goes slower than the motor. Aluminum straddles these classes of spindle; it can be cut with fairly high RPMs., at the low range of the fast spindles or the high range of the slow ones (depending, of course, on the size of tool being used).
As for the t-slot tables, you can buy them new (see https://www.jashmetrology.com/produc...s-base-plates/ ) or look for a used one on ebay or wherever. You can also cut them yourself in aluminum if steel seems too daunting. .
Peter
