harbor freight on sale for $330 a couple years ago (free shipping even) also, and later I extended the bed to 14" with a new bed from The Little Machine Shop. Works fine for my purposes and I bought the bed extension in anticipation of making some custom R9 pistons that will be better for some o-ring sealed piston schemes I have.
Here are a couple pics including a spring with a home made spring kit and an aluminium piston cap that uses an o-ring for a seal.
