Hello everybody
Just submitted my first post so its only correct to let you all know who I am.I'm from just outside London in England and have spent 33 of my 50 years in engineering.From an apprenticeship in toolmaking,then manufacturing machine guns,rifles and small calibre (30mm and 25mm)tank and aircraft cannons.Then onto Jet engine parts,from the old Spey,Avon,Viper,RB 211,RB 199,Olympus concord engine,Pegasus Harrier engine, BMW/RR 710,715 and many others that I have forgotten.Mixed in with these I did airframe components for airbus wings,have done a spell on torpedo hull sections,armoured vehicle chassis parts,satellite components,radar equipment,some formula one car parts,and loads of other stuff.Have probably cut 90% of the materials used in industry over the past years from pure copper,brass,inconel and other nickel alloys,cast iron,cast aluminium,high tensile airframe aluminium with and without lithium,magnesium,titanium and many types of steel.I got fed up with this about 5 years ago and changed career to start working on the England to France and Belgium high speed railway as part of the train maintenance team.
However I recently found that I miss cutting metal and have got myself a small lathe and mill and have started to construct small items,including a couple of stuart models steam engines.Its so much more fun turning a 3" flywheel than loading up a 3 ton aluminium billet to start on a plane wing part.I hope to build an i/c engine next so will be watching these pages for a suitable project.
Sorry for the long story/autobiography but it may be handy if anybody has a query about any of the above stuff that I may be able to help with(obviously once they have tried everywhere else and all thats left is the bottom of the barrel).
best regards Steve C
;D 
