Video of vintage fire engines at the Westland Heritage Park, Hokitika

In The Shed Issue #80 we visited this heritage park and met the great folks caring for and restoring industrial machines and vehicles.
Here is a short video of their collection of volunteer fire brigade engines from around the South Island. Our tour guide is Michael Rooney.

In The Shed Issue #80 we visited this heritage park and met the great folks caring for and restoring industrial machines and vehicles.
Here is a short video of their collection of volunteer fire brigade engines from around the South Island. Our tour guide is Michael Rooney.

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Tricks of the trade

Philip King was employed in insurance when he decided he wanted to work with his hands. So he joined furniture manufacturer and restorer C.F. Neary Ltd before starting his own business under his house in Remuera in 1991. Soon afterwards he moved to a commercial building in Marua Road, Ellerslie, Auckland, where he now owns two units and employs four staff.
This period has seen dramatic change in the antique furniture world. The appearance of very cheap new furniture from Asia has seen both substantially lower price expectations and the demise of many New Zealand manufacturers, which has been reflected in falling antique furniture values.

Build your own tinnie

The aluminium runabout – better known as the tinnie – is the quintessential Kiwi bach boat. Most arrive in the backyard direct from the showroom or Trade Me, but Auckland boat designer Jim Pauling has created a new way of getting a tinnie: building it by kitset.
He has several sizes in his range. This one is the baby, the DIYNO 361, at 3.6 metres long. Thanks to improved technology and lower prices for power tools generally, it is much easier for the home handyman to pick up a welder, have a few practice runs on some scrap aluminium, or do a course at night school, and build his own kitset, 12-foot tinnie.
Pauling is a diehard fan of aluminium as a building material. Thanks to CNC (computer numerically controlled) cutters, it can be accurately cut to shape for sale as a kitset, which saves labour and vastly improves the result.

The magic of mud

Christchurch potter Renate Galetzka draws inspiration for her colourful and quirky pots from her daughter’s stint as a circus trapeze artist and the books of Dr Seuss.
“I want to make people smile,” says Renate, whose pots are fanciful but functional, made to be used not left on the shelf. “I make pots to brighten your day every day.”
German-born Renate met her Kiwi husband, Liam, in the Abel Tasman National Park in the 1980s. “I was on an OE and I’m still on an OE,” she declares, and part of that on-going overseas experience included discovering the art of ceramics. She took hobby classes in Christchurch, followed by “work experience” with one of the grand dames of New Zealand pottery, Frederika Ernsten, looking after her gallery in return for lessons. Renate went on to run and teach pottery at the Risingholme Community Centre.