The right glasses help - I have a pair that are really intended for working on the computer, but they allow me to focus exactly on the work when I'm welding close-up.

thanks for the tips guys, will be trying bashing an old shroud flatter tomorrow!

got myself an old magnifying glass and butchered it to fit the mask, is helping a bit but still quite difficult, im very long sighted (+9.5 right eye and +11 left eye) which is the worst my optician has ever seen apparently :o

on the compressor front i have a nice 200l 3.5hp beastie so no troubles there, with the die grinder was going to get some steel bits, used to use them at the garage i worked at and they were brilliant, removed material fairly well and stayed sharp! the guy that bought them had them for 4 years, used them all the time and they were still razor sharp. found a set on ebay, not cheap but worth the money!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Professional-c...ht_ 635wt_907

this guy also sells loads of other tools reasonable prices and some quite obscure stuff which can be difficult to get hold of.

Cheers

Jake