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Alistair Allen’s Kiwiana sheds in Oamaru

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Valve radios: Retro Radio magic

16 April 2025

The family gathering around the wireless to listen to the Friday evening programme may be a thing of the distant past but the beauty of those old valve-driven radios lives on in the dedicated work of Retro Radios.
Based in Dannevirke, Alister Ramsay works from an assortment of sheds, a garage and a container lovingly restoring old valve radios and radiograms. In a workshop redolent of the glory days of the 1940s to the 1960s, with nostalgic posters for Life magazine and a smattering of old cameras – another hobby is collecting old cameras – Alister works to a background of smooth jazz issuing from a variety of beautifully restored valve radios producing warm-toned music to set the mood.

Video of From Rust to rrroarrr – part three

14 April 2025

In my first two articles about the rebuild of a bitser 1952-ish AJS 500 motorcycle, I outlined how I welded a broken cast-iron cooling fin on the motor, checked the magneto ignition and got the head repaired.
I also described what I had learnt about nickel plating (using surplus nickel welding rods and then nickel tape) so that I could make a relatively cheap substitution for chromium, eg on pushrod cover tubes and bolt heads.
Nickel plating was also used to build up a worn kick-starter shaft as a part approach to stopping the kick-start from jamming; I also ground back a couple of teeth on the starter quadrant gear.
My bitser’s gearbox
The gearbox is a Burman CP type, used on many English bikes, with a code G45 L47 stamped on it.
The L in the code refers to the month of assembly, so November.
47 is the year: 1947. So this would have gone into a bike probably in 1948. (My claim to be rebuilding a 1952 AJS looks shakier.)

My shed: Going bush in town

10 April 2025

Many guys like to retreat to a space they have created and feel comfortable in. For some, it’s a shed to tinker in and build things, for others it’s some sort of man cave where they can socialise with their mates.
Gary Were of Stratford, in Taranaki, has gone a step further. The 71-year-old year semi-retired builder and deer hunter has re-created a replica of his favourite bush hut under his urban house.
For 30 years Gary has been deer hunting in the Urewera ranges in the centre of the North Island. It’s an isolated place, where the boys get flown in by Heliseka Helicopter and spend a week each year hunting sika and sometimes red deer.

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