Hello Paul,

Sorry for not spotting your post earlier.

A 'traditional' first project is the Stuart 10V or 10H steam engine – although that's quite small for your equipment, it would still be good for getting used to your gear.

There's a build thread started recently by David Clark HERE

Neil

If I may be allowed to publicise two of my books which are intended to introduce the newcomer to the lathe and the milling machine. These, have both plans and instructions for making workshop equipment, and progressing from the very simple to relatively complex items, in so doing moving the novice from beginner to quite able machine user.

The books are, “Lathework, a Complete Course” and “Milling, a Complete Course”.

See my website here and here for details.

If you wish to take up Neil's suggestion of a H10 or V10 Stuart engine and would like to make a quick start then you could take a look at my pages regarding making these. They are though based on using a lathe only but most of the milling task methods can easily be transferred to the milling machine. The article can be found here. Other wise follow David's thread as it progresses.

As a relatively newcomer to metalworking you may fine my website as a whole worth looking at, it has around 500 pages of metalworking info. The best place to start is at the book style index. With individual questions you cannot do better than to pose them on this forum, the members are very helpful.

Harold

Paul, I would agree with everything that Harold has advised. I have both the books he mentions and they are well worth getting. Also, look at TomsTechniques website – he has instructional videos on lathe work, milling, tool grinding and safety which are very good, under the umbrella of "common sense machining", and as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Also, don't – never in fact – feel you can't ask a daft/stupid question on here, it's been often stated on here that if you don't know the answer then the question isn't daft or stupid and this is a very good site for getting good advice, so welcome and enjoy!

Chris

Thanks Ady for the prompt, in fact I do do as you suggest for personnel websites similar to mine. I did also have a link to the ME/MEW website on my home page. Initially, I only intended my website to be a show case for my many pastimes, this can be seen by the fact that pastimes such as live sound recording, cabinet making, pencil sketching, etc. have all low page numbers. Similarly, for personnel pages such as our holidays and being members of the Salvation Army.

However, as most readers will know, the website has grown well beyond those initial ideas and the home page has been edited on numerous occasions with the link to the ME/MEW site going AWOL. I will therefore Ady again add a link to the forum. I feel though that having done that I have a responsibility of doing it for the other forums I am a member. My present list has fifteen forums on it and I know there are others that link to my website, some non English speaking. So as they link to my site then I will place a link to there's. I can create the list from the data I receive for visits to my website.

As this will no doubt increase the list to twenty, plus, I feel a page dedicated to the links would be the best approach. As I am very busy at the moment (hence the delay in replying to you comment Ady) I cannot promise to do this till the new year but once done I will come back to let the thread know.

As an aside, the link I see from a forum in many cases gives a link back to the actual page on which the link to my site exists. This is good as I can see immediately the subject being discussed. This site though, with a few others, lists the link as coming from the home page. Because of this I have to use Google to see what is being discussed relative to me.

Harold

Harold, that is an enormous list just to advertise your books!! Only kidding,

You must have nothing else to do