Hi All,
I'm a retired Brit living in the East of Thailand, where the climate is warm-enough to not incur heating bills and much of my modelling can be done on the front-porch. My primary interest is steam though I'm currently swearing at my first Flame-licker engine, while I try to save some pennies for copper to make a boiler.
I have a tiny little MJ-189A lathe, which has seen a lot of work in the five-years I've had it, and I have a crappy Chinese bench-drill rigged as a pseudo milling-machine by using an X-Y table.
Most of my projects go through the route of Hair-brained idea->scribbles on paper->coffee-stains over the scribbles->butchering wood into patterns->aluminium casting->try to machine my castings->try to get the blighter to 'go' or whatever.
I get a lot of pleasure from making castings; the learning curve is still quite enjoyable - why did that 'pour' fail? how can I re-design to need less machining? - and of course, the failures simply go back into the melting-pot to become another attempt, sometime, maybe. Also, I'm seldom short of a bit of material because the runners and risers are quite adequate for odd-jobs.
The main problem living out here is that the nearest tool shops are in Bangkok - two-hundred kilometres away, and that's the near end of the city. Locals here haven't heard of most of the hand-tools I need, even after using translate.google to get the Thai for it.
Luckily most locals just think I'm crazy, whereas, I know I am.
Geoff
