Sorry Sproutylad, I should have said. Yes I bought it second hand (although a brand new one for that price would have been nice), I was quoting the details to give you an idea of the second hand values. I notice you can pay £400 or so just for a sliding table so second hand was the only route for me.
I haven't tried making up a support bed but I see no reason why it would not work if the bed surrounds the saw table without actually covering it, (else the rip fence would have no support if the rail was covered over).
The right hand support table folds into place easily and the rip fence slides along it. It's quite compact if the table is dropped down and the sliding table removed (slides off easily - 1 minute job). The newer versions have a cast iron table, mine is aluminium. I think the only issue is that there is no blade insert. This doesn't worry me but if you want to put a zero tolerance insert or use a dado head then some modification would be needed.
I'm very pleased with mine. And now I'm thinking of following up your idea of trying to make up a support bed, although it will have to be easily removable else it will take up too much space for me.
Hope this helps.
K
