I've been thinking about buying a sheet metal shear, but they are fairly expensive and only do one thing (though they do that thing very well).

Instead of buying a shear which will nearly always be used for aluminum, what if I bought some c-beam linear rail from openbuild with a gantry plate and mount a milwaukee cordless router. I'd then build some system to clamp the work under the gantry plate (with the correct spacing of course). The idea is that I can use the router to face a square edge on the sheet by manually walking the router down the linear rail like a fence.

I think I can build this for $500 which is about $3000 cheaper than a shear and while it will be messy, I think I can get stuff flat to within .005, I'll be able to cut part way instead of the whole way with the shear, and I'll be able to cut/face stuff that I couldn't on the shear like plexi or carbon fiber.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Should I expect decent results? I don't want to fling money at this unless I have reason to believe I'll get what I'm after.

If it matters, building the clamping system is well within the capabilities of my shop. I have a steel band saw, a tig, etc....

schu