Angelo like you we messed with making our own but ended up going with the flow and getting the Kent. He has done all the hard yards like the way he uses a double row of bristles to solve the problem you have mentioned. Its also darn handy to be able to see down through the perspex top whilst cutting but more importantly to remove it easily doing a Z or tool changing. If you do a search of this forum youll find only praise for the Kent and Shopbot have sort of adapted it to the Desktop.
Buddy BT48 with 6' power stick
2.2 HSD Spindle
Aspire 9.5
6" ShopBot Indexer