Been living in Essex for nearly 40 years – having been transferred (kicking and screaming) by my employer from my true home in the Highlands of Scotland.

My profession, once honorable, was in Banking so no background or knowledge in anything mechanical / technical – apart from helping my father keep the old Standard 8 on the road.

However, always been a 'tinkerer' initially in electronics which led on to becoming a licenced radio 'ham', which in turn led on to an interest in computers.

On early retirement some 16 years ago I became obsessed with woodturning and eventually developed sufficient skill to be sponsored and elected as a Registered Professional Turner (R.P.T.). One can only keep so many woodturnings however and I became very disillusioned when the general populace hereabouts thought that a hollow form, produced in something like horrendously expensive Walnut – after tens of hours of work could be compared and priced the same as a mass-produced salad bowl from the £ shop! So I started to make bagpipes.

Unfortunately over the years I didn't do my lungs any favours and I've had to abandon woodturning – something I found very theraputic.

I then took up photography, gained some accreditations and relatively recently decided I needed to get into a specialist area i.e. extreme macro photography where, for example, I would take highly magnified images of a fly's eye etc etc. This forced me to look at building some specialist platforms, this in turn led me to 3D printing and building my own printer(s) to prototype parts. When I then found out the cost of having parts CNC'd or laser cut I decided that making them myself would be a more satisfying option. Hence, my purchase of a lathe and milling machine and the beginnings of a collection of all the goodies/ boy's toys that we must have.

Now, I realise that I have always greatly admired the precision, beauty, look and feel of model engines and just as I wanted to leave behind a 'signature' piece of woodturning I'd also like to produce a really nice engine for my grandson (and a few for myself).

Haven't been able to do much until very recently other than reading up on the basics, but now on the cusp of getting started. Been very impressed with the level of activity on this forum and looking around to see if I can find others with similar interests nearby – on the basis that meeting others with skills is a much faster track to learning than just reading about it.

There is of course the statistical probability that those individuals I seek out are more likely to enjoy a decent pint of real ale as opposed to the masses of lager drinkers here!

Charles