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[voigts]

I will probably end up using them on both my miter saw and table saw. It will be so much faster to cut aluminum sheets with a table saw than having to use a jig saw. I planning on using an aluminum frame (with wooden exterior) on my next build (I'm going some renders for it at the moment). A table saw makes much cleaner cuts too than a jig saw, and it is a lot quicker and easier than having to use a hand held circular saw. As for the bits of material, you just wear safety glasses and long sleeves. I wear glasses anyway, but when cutting metal, I always wear safety glasses as one little piece of metal in your eye will take you to the doctor/hospital.

I also will be cutting small square pieces for a res, and I've found out the hard way before that when you are making a rectangular res out of rectangular pieces, the less you have to mess with the edges and the squarer you can cut the pieces the better as you can then get good seams.

As for the grooves in your plexi, you may want to consider doing a bit of flame polishing with a small pencil torch. As long as an edge isn't going to be solvent welded (glued), you can hit it with a torch a bit to shine it up quickly. A pencil torch is ideal for small notches like that, and can save a lot of time sanding.

As for tools, I've already accumulated more than I planned. The more you tinker with stuff and build stuff, the more tools you find yourself needing. I've now got a large belt drive table saw, scroll saw, drill press, miter saw, sliding miter saw, orbital sander, belt sander, mouse sander (very handy), sawzall, cordless and power drills, new router with interchangeable bases, variable speed Dremel with bunches of bits, digital calipers, squares, clamps of all sizes from 4'" to 4", etc, etc, and have used all of them except for sawzall in modding. Modding is infectious!