[OSM-talk] Creating a subset of OSM and storing it in Postgis tables

[mick]

I need to build a database of a subset of features from a specific area, storing them in a series of tables according to feature type (eg. natural, historic, waterway, ...) from predefined subsets of the planet file.

In doing this I hope to minimise:
1 my impact on OSM's resources
2 amount of data I have to download (I'm in Australia so I'm burdened with 20GB monthly traffic limits).

My current thinking is that I need to:

1. download the weekly England, Scotland & Wales excerpts from geofabrik
2. merge the 3 files
3. filter out what I don't need
4. load the rest into the db tables
5. merge in data from other sources
6. manipulate the data as I require

So far 
1. is fine, I can even do a script for when I need it

2. I have a very clunky answer for - convert to mapinfo tabs, copy 1 file to a new file, then manually copy the contents of the other two to the new file.

3. I can just about make very slow headway with by manually deleting individual redundant objects

4. failure - I can't get my head around the complexity of db design.

5. can do somewhat within the constraints of parts 1 - 4 not being solved.

6. I can manage within the constraints of parts 1 - 4 not being solved.

I think my main problem is not being able to apply tools like osmosis and osm2pgsql due to the docs being rather too abstract for me to see the answer, maybe I'm loosing my mental agility.

Is there anyone out there who can point me to simplified instructions or has the time and patience to help me with any part of the above.

mick