Hello everyone. I am an instrument maker in the making , and have been on the Woodwind instrument making course in Newark-on-Trent. I have wanted to join your forum for a while, but was a bit reluctant mainly because I fear I may have rather too many questions to ask!

I have a Colchester lathe, and I did try joining the Yahoo group for Colchester owners but I never heard anything back from whatever mysterious entity is in charge of that. Does anyone know anything more about this?

I suppose some may be wondering what making instruments has to do with model engineering, and while I don't necessarily have an interest in model making, many of the tools & techniques used to make an instrument (flutes in my case) are shared with the model engineering world, as well as jewellery making. There is a lot of crossover in that sense.

Perhaps some among you follow the machining community on YouTube? I was in the 2015 toolbox giveaway run by a gentleman named Keith Fenner. I don't wish to blow my own trumpet, but if you can be bothered to sit through a video of me waffling on about what I do, that might be a better introduction that one I can offer in writing!

Thanks.

Thanks guys

With regard to the Colchester group, I checked through my emails again – it seems I am in fact a member, but being a new member my first post has to be approved (and never was) and thus I can't really do much on the group. I tried to post on there, but later received an automatic email saying it did not publish because the moderator did not approve it within 14 days. So that explains it.

Since I am at the stage where I am in the process of setting up my home workshop, my questions will be mainly about tooling I suspect, so I guess I need to work out the best sub-forum to use. It's such a shame I can't use the Colchester group! It would have been very handy if still active. One of the most pressing questions at the moment is about my taper turning attachment, which is missing the clamp rod thing (?) and I'm wondering if I can make a new one. I'll try and create a separate thread on the right topic sub forum though.

I hope to be able to share pictures of upcoming projects and the occasional video on YT, but as I say the workshop is in its infancy – I have a lathe, but not much else! I'm just going to be saving up and slowly ticking off all the things on the flute-making shopping list, bit by bit…