Hi Greebe - If you have the space a fixed gantry is always stiffer then a moving one. Plus its table is driven by a single drive so "walking" is not an issue. The Makita is good but you will have to use high feed speeds to compensate for its high speed. I thrashed my Mak for 3 years and wore out its brushes. Put in new brushes and off again. Good but very noisy!! 5mm leads will give you heaps of grunt for the aluminium... but slow rapids....so far so good....Peter