Alex,

Good evening or morning to you down under.

First I want to say thank you for the "Make mine a double" article you did I found it while researching building doubles and it is very inspiring to say the least. I am relatively to the forums and have a few questions. I have read Ellis Brown's book many times over and your article. I have also been communicating on Jeffe post on the 45/120 Huglu build. and will build my first double on my DeHaan double later this year. On your furnace that you heated the shoe lump barrels so well. I was thinking that I could use my small forge that I use for knife making to do something similar but on a monoblock barrel joining? My question is not quite in the line with this thread so I apologize for stepping in a different direction. On a first build I am looking at doing a mono block out of 4140, I looked at your mono block and it looked like it was completely machined from the same piece of steel, and have looked Ellis's way of building a mono block. I have basic machining skills, lots of motivation and patience, plan on practicing on aluminum first then moving to steel when I get the process and skills in place. Would you recommend machining the block and lumps from the same piece of steel? Or making the block and lumps separate then silver solder together?

Again sorry if I asked the question in the wrong manner.

Have a good day.

Dave