Hello Holly, welcome to the creek from another newby. I've held off responding to your thread, but as someone said it has really become interesting. After spending 20 years in the 4th largest fire department in the nation I retired, went back to college, picked up a couple of degrees, and spent the past 10 years teaching fire technology and initial service training at a small community college. Like most firefighters, I was never sure what I wanted to do when I grew up, so over the years I have also: been a police officer/arson investigator, private investigator, charter pilot (and Martin, I have about 80 hours in a DC-3 that was converted to the 1200 peak hp engines the same year I was born) contracted some remodeling, built some cabinets and entertainment centers for customers, and consulted (which may be the best of all, getting paid for what you know not what you can do). I have a 11X23' shop that they call a garage extension that is closed in, heated, air conditioned and very crowded. It is impossible to work sheet goods on the TS so they have to be rough cut before final shaping. My job now is semi-retired soon to be fully retired (end of August) and I'm afraid LOML has some traveling in store starting in September, so my woodworking will suffer. Look at the Jet mini lathe, but you should be aware that they should give teh lathes away since they will really get to you on all the accessories.