Well, despite having my lathe working much better than ever before I made a couple of MAJOR BOO BOO's with the Stuart 10V

1) I went to mill the steam chest face, forgot to put the Z lock on and ended up with a lot more metal removed than anticipated, so much so that it has far more taken off one side than the other, not the end of the world I thought, a few modifications here and there and its not really a problem.
2) Much smaller, yet bigger and catastrophic mistake.... I drilled the steam chest for the eccentric guide rod, centre drilled it and all that and the first hole was no problem. however, that hole continues at the top of the steam chest dome. Now this was using a 2mm (ish) drill, having it quite a way out the chuck in the tail stock as I needed the length to reach the top of the steam chest, the drill was so flexible that it caught on the rough surface and put it off centre and continued to drill off centre, no problem I thought as the rod will still move ok. What I didn't take into account was the brass block which moves the steam from top and bottom on the eccentric, this needs to run flat at all times creating a steam tight seal, this now can not happen as the rod moves at an angle and is lower at the top than the bottom. Its a great shame as the outside of the chest was near on a days work and looked super by the end of it, but it just wont ever run like it.
My options now are to order a new steam chest and do it all again, remembering to file the inside of the steam chest before drilling it, and drill the eccentric rod hole first with the bigger drill it needs and then use that thicker drill to create a "dimple" in the top of the dome for the small drill to start from.
Very gutted at the moment and no sure what to do next, I think a call to Stuart may be needed to order a new chest....

I am more gutted about all the work that went into it, and now it has to be binned...
The other option is to have it as a decoration piece only as it would still turn by hand, and probably air/steam if it were under enough pressure, lol

Oh well, the saga continues, lol....