I'm BAAAACK, Jeff! And quite happy to be here again...
I have an old blue Biax that I bought for $125 (if my memory is correct... ;-) It was loose as a goose in the slide ways from wear as purchased, but the motor and everything else were working just fine, and it came with the factory box and some extra tooling, in working condition and nothing was broken. I was able to re-work the slide ways so it is a lot tighter than it was, pretty close to new as far as how it performs. Keep on the lookout for a decently priced Biax that works, and jump on it as soon as you can! Building a new one from scratch that will actually do good and comfortable work seems to not often be a trivial project that does good work. Sure, it is fun to build our own tooling, but sometimes it pays to just get the tried and true and get to work on making stuff we really want to make... Bob K.