Hello everyone, especially you "chaps" from the British Isles. I am pleased to have been okayed to join your ranks. I am relatively new at the game of machining. I have attempted to build a couple of gas/petrol engines without too much success of them running. The tolerances were not good enough. But I am learning (I think) from my mistrakes. Ha-Ha I was informed of your homepage from members of another site that I am a member of, dare I say HMEM. I am also a member of MEN (Model Engine News) and FloridaME. I only had rudimentary machine shop training when I was in high school some 50 years ago. I always had a love of and longing to get back into building model engines. Three years ago I purchased a Craftex (Busy Bee) CT039 Chinese 9X19 lathe and one year ago I went a little deeper into debt (not really) and purchased a Craftex CT129 Milling machine. In between time I have obtained most of the required tooling (except for a rotary table which are quite expensive). I am 67 years young. I am in the midst of gathering the materials to build "Henry Ford's First Engine" of which I have purchases the plans already. I am having a lot of trouble finding a 13 inch handwheel from a LARGE valve such as used on a natural gas or oil pipeline or possibly a refinery. I guess I will have to start scouring the scrap metal yards. The fences around refinerys are too high to climb over. I hope to converse with some of you on this forum. If there is something I can help you with "over here" don't hesitate to let me know (as long as it isn't money). Thanx once again for accepting me. Billmc