What are your special interests?

Hobbies - making things e.g. bookcase, green oak kitchen island with pegged joints - I made copper worktop out of my old hot water cylinder, the electric wheelchair I use (I did all the welding, made wheel hubs, I used a commercial wheelchair controller, motors and joystick as it would have taken ages to design and build those as well as the mechanical bits) - I built it because the NHS one was rubbish.

I've almost finished fixing an old FTIR infrared spectrometer - still need to sort out the optics in the Michelson interferometer which I think is broken as the adjustments don't give full interference rings - strangely the moving mirror in the Michelson interferometer is a defraction grating. 

I've also started fixing an old van to transport me and the wheelchair - I knew it needed work when I purchased it, but it has turned out to need a lot of work which is taking me rather a long time (months) as I can't do much each day (sometimes nothing when I'm not well enough) - I've fixed a lot on it but I still need to do some welding on it.

Before the van I'd started working on building a tokamak - I did check with the relevant government department (HSE) before starting on it that it was within the law to build and run one from a domestic dwelling - I've started with the vacuum system and as I'm on a budget I had to get a secondhand turbo molecular vacuum pump which has required quite a lot of work to get the mating surface perfectly flat (and still needs work).  I'll probably donate the tokamak to a University when I finally finish it and get it up and running as I believe there aren't any Universities in the UK that have one.  I got interested in tokamaks when my nephew asked me to 3d print the ITER tokamak (you can download the files for free from the ITER website), it took around three and a half months to finish it with the 3d printer often running 24 hours a day (I don't think he realised quite how much work was involved when he asked me to print it).

I've also been cutting keys for a few years and have setup a website so people can order keys cut from a photo - I started looking into keys a few years ago when I was doing a part time course at college and had to wait 40 minutes for the one key they had for the wheelchair lift, I decided that it would be worth having my own so that I wouldn't have the same problem again and after taking a photo of it I then filed a blank key to the same shape - since then I purchased several key cutting machines and loads of key blanks - fortunately I don't get many orders through my website as my health isn't up to doing more than a few a week and as such the turnover is below the point where you need to pay tax and as I've never made a profit in each year I would count it as a hobby.

Hobbies - making things e.g. bookcase, green oak kitchen island with pegged joints - I made copper worktop out of my old hot water cylinder, the electric wheelchair I use (I did all the welding, made wheel hubs, I used a commercial wheelchair controller, motors and joystick as it would have taken ages to design and build those as well as the mechanical bits) - I built it because the NHS one was rubbish.

I've almost finished fixing an old FTIR infrared spectrometer - still need to sort out the optics in the Michelson interferometer which I think is broken as the adjustments don't give full interference rings - strangely the moving mirror in the Michelson interferometer is a defraction grating. 

I've also started fixing an old van to transport me and the wheelchair - I knew it needed work when I purchased it, but it has turned out to need a lot of work which is taking me rather a long time (months) as I can't do much each day (sometimes nothing when I'm not well enough) - I've fixed a lot on it but I still need to do some welding on it.

Before the van I'd started working on building a tokamak - I did check with the relevant government department (HSE) before starting on it that it was within the law to build and run one from a domestic dwelling - I've started with the vacuum system and as I'm on a budget I had to get a secondhand turbo molecular vacuum pump which has required quite a lot of work to get the mating surface perfectly flat (and still needs work).  I'll probably donate the tokamak to a University when I finally finish it and get it up and running as I believe there aren't any Universities in the UK that have one.  I got interested in tokamaks when my nephew asked me to 3d print the ITER tokamak (you can download the files for free from the ITER website), it took around three and a half months to finish it with the 3d printer often running 24 hours a day (I don't think he realised quite how much work was involved when he asked me to print it).

I've also been cutting keys for a few years and have setup a website so people can order keys cut from a photo - I started looking into keys a few years ago when I was doing a part time course at college and had to wait 40 minutes for the one key they had for the wheelchair lift, I decided that it would be worth having my own so that I wouldn't have the same problem again and after taking a photo of it I then filed a blank key to the same shape - since then I purchased several key cutting machines and loads of key blanks - fortunately I don't get many orders through my website as my health isn't up to doing more than a few a week and as such the turnover is below the point where you need to pay tax and as I've never made a profit in each year I would count it as a hobby.

tokamak hey? I guess that explains the nuclear radiation symbol Trev getting that "up and running" would be amazing! all the best with it you certainly are up for a challenge and you have a great skill set  :-)