Les'sWeb site



Welcome to my web site. It is mainly devoted to my obsession with making things outof metal. Most people see a nice car and say " I wish I could afford to buy one.." I look at a nice car and think "I can do that!" Above is one of the results. If you want to find out more about my Locost then click  here. This area was last updated in july 2001 and is a bit out of date.

About a year ago I bought a plasma cutter - This is my sort of toy! It will cut through 1/4" steel plate like a hot knife through butter! Plasma cutters work by pumping compressed air through anelectric arc then out  of a tiny nozzle. The result is a stream of gas that is hotter than the surface of the sun and literally blows thesteel away. The big problem with these machines is that you need a very steady hand or a template to get a straight cut.

What I really needed was a CNC plasma cutter. I could then cut any shape I could draw. After giving my wallet a nervous breakdown by looking at the cost of  commercial machines I thought "I can do that.." The end result can be seen here

Now I had a CNC plasma cutter I needed something to make with it.  I have always been interested in off-roading and'green laning' and have built a few off road buggies for fun. My twisted sense of logic decided the answer was obvious - build a  road legaloff-roader based on a Land Rover. The FrankenRover  project has started...

..and, er, stopped. For various reasons I have not had time to carry on with this project. It will be finished as soon as Iget some free time.

I have retrofitted a number of machines for various people. A while back a local woodworker asked me if I could build a router for him. Here are the results. The job took far longer and cost a lot more than I expected. I didn't actually lose money on the job but I must have been working for about £2 an hour!

A little while back I noticed an unfinished NCF Torino kit car on eBay. It is based on a Fiat Panda 4x4. It had a reserve of £750 and not surprisingly didn't sell. I went to have a look at the car and offered the seller £400. He was not happy but in the end he accepted. Unfinished projects are not worth a lot and as this kit was designed before the SVA test came into force it needs quite a bit of work to bring it up to spec

Finally an update! Here are some pics of a CNC lathe conversion I did some time back.

A while back I bought a brand new Chinese import off-roader. Knowing the extremely variable Chinese quality control  I regarded it as a kit of parts with a registration attached rather than a complete vehicle. Even with that attitude I was rather disappointed with it. Here you can find some information on my trials and tribulations with this beast.


Latest news:

23/6/12 Added Copelander pages
5/5/11 Added lathe page
24/9/07 Added NCF Torino pages
21/9/05 Added CNC router pages
3/7/03   fixed some broken links
2/7/03    Land rover pages updated and extended