Some progress
It took quite a while for the kit I ordered from Adafruit to arrive - and of course when it did it sat in the post office for a while waiting for me to find the time to go and pay the £15 customs charge (of which £8 was paid for the privilege of the Royal Mail handling it at all). Anyway, I spent some time at the weekend with my 4 year old son, Euan, soldering the stepper driver board together (he mainly enjoyed snipping the solder) so I’m now at the point of trying to get the motors going.
I’m also planning on joining the London Hackspace so that I can make use of their nice new (ish) laser cutter - I’ll keep you posted.