Hi, I'm new here, and very much want to respond to one of the classifieds – however, I cannot access his contact details as I am new and haven't made enough posts yet. I absolutely understand and respect the reasoning behind this strategy, but wondered if there was a way round it without making a flurry of spurious posts just for the sake of it and risk annoying people! Any help gratefully received. Thanks, Jim

Thanks Bill! I did my little intro in the new members bit, but to recap, I'm hoping in general to learn some wisdom from the amassed expertise of the forums here to help me get started with my little C0 lathe, "by Sieg out of Axminster", as it were. I've always messed about with vintage (for which read clapped-out) vehicles and motorcycles, but as I descend gracefully into my dotage I'm looking for smaller projects. I'm intrigued by some of the smaller engines I've read about here and elsewhere – the Sterling engine has particularly caught my eye as something to start with. I've also built a little gas cylinder propane furnace, which successfully produced some latheable aluminium billet at my first attempt a few days ago. Whilst looking through the classifieds, I noticed a Sieg mini mill for what looked like a reasonable price, posted by Eric Tomlinson. I'm thinking it would make a handy addition to the lathe; I've looked at some of the vertical milling slides for the micro lathes, but somehow they seem like a fiddle. Or perhaps it's just my 'new toy' addiction looking for another fix! Best, Jim