New member, resident New Plymouth, New Zealand, now retired (just about!), aged 71

Served 10,000 hour apprenticeship as fitter/turner in late fifties, plus two years as tradesman. Moved on to drawing board and at the same time started NZCE (similar to HNC), finishing in late sixties. From there, studied (then new) CEI, finally graduating in 1973. Spent the rest of my working life as Professional Engineer, firstly in small Hydro and for the last 20 odd years in pressure vessels and pressure piping for the petrochem engineering. Built my own 26ft keel yacht, from scratch, some 35 years ago. machined my own design self tailing winches, keel bolts, wire rope terminals (similar to sta-loc) and cast lead keel. Currently converting dovetail bench mill to CNC (very slowly)!