Our cover story in the May/June 2021 Issue No. 96 of The Shed is about a sheddie who decided to avoid spending a fortune on tools for his new career and instead make his own. Why? Because he could, and it saved waiting months for delivery in these Covid ravaged times. Plus there were considerable financial savings to be had.
David Etchells is assistant to Fran Anderton in her glass-blowing business in Whanganui. He has brought some of his sheddie skills to Fran’s workshop that sees them using the tools that David has made to create amazing blown-glass products. David shows us some unique tools specific for making glass and how he makes them.
Here’s a project this issue that can include lunch as well. Dave Montgomery shows us how he makes a true Kiwi delicacy into a stylish lamp for your home or as a desirable gift. Dave’s paua-shell lamp project is simple and easy to follow, looks fantastic, and can earn you a tasty snack as you create. The added bonus is that you now have another excuse to stroll beaches as you search for materials.
Our gifting theme continues this issue with our Mastering the Lathe series, part 4. Ever had trouble coming up with the right gift for someone who seems to have everything? Well, here’s an idea that’s ideal for a keen gardener. Our project this issue is a stainless-steel dibble and it’s more than a coincidence that it is a good example for demonstrating taper turning on your lathe.
Our regular electronic projects combine this issue when Enrico Miglino takes a vintage mannequin, upcycles it, and mixes technology with artistic thinking to create some unique security for his smart-home project. This is an unusual and fun way to enjoy this issue’s electronic/upcycling vintage technology projects.
Now here’s a sheddie tale with a few twists. Otago-born twin brothers Bob and Bill Turnbull, both engineers, both restorers of rare Bugattis — worlds apart, pass away within a few years of each other and their vehicles sell for millions of dollars. An amazing story spanning 60 years that displays the incredible engineering talents of two lads from rural New Zealand.
Winter’s coming and the brewing of beer needs to reflect that. In our Brewers Scoop article this issue, we brew heavy winter ales as our tastes change with the season. Winter beers tend to be more comfort beers. We tend to slow our consumption to lesser volumes (we don’t have the same craving for thirst-quenching beers), and instead tend to enjoy fully bodied beers with malt flavours, including caramel, chocolate, coffee, and even vanilla. These beer styles include amber ales, porters, and stouts.
Want to save $16.99 a month? Well, Nigel Young can show you how by making your own home server. In these pandemic-riddled days when many more of us are working from home, the need for a home server becomes evident. Nigel will show you how to and to avoid all those monthly server subscription costs.
Ritchie Wilson has had a couple of his garden gates stolen over the years. So, what does this mean? An opportunity to learn more about making steel gates and appreciating a wrought-iron gate for the beauty it holds, that’s what. This is a how-to story that is really quite riveting.
Our Off the Grid column this issue sees Murray Grimwood extolling the virtues of ‘build energy’ and ‘entropy’: two things we’ll be hearing a lot more about. Basically, we need to not be constantly making new items but to make an effort to reuse what we have for the good of humanity. Murray shows what he reuses with great success and some distinctive style.
Vicki Price writes about her dad, who has some real talent when it comes to making things, and she describes the build he did of an entirely wooden grandfather clock. Her father, Rex McCaffrey, didn’t have a plan as such but went ahead — after seeing a picture in a magazine — to design and build a wooden grandfather clock. Naturally, on a project of this scale, the hours turned into years and became filled with calculations, physics, and engineering nous, to make and, at times, remake components to get everything just right.
Our roving reporter in Brisbane, Bruce Hall, takes us to visit a true Aussie sheddie, one Tony ‘Woodsy’ Wood. Hosting a Bathurst Day shed gathering is a tradition in Tony Woods’ life. It’s probably a bigger day than Christmas at his neat home in north Brisbane. Tony did not train as a professional motor mechanic, but his love for speedway — beginning at the age of 10, when first taken by his father — has meant he is a dab hand with the spanner. Enjoy this gathering of fans of ‘The Great Race’ while they enjoy a bevvy or two and some great tucker at Bathurst Day at Woodsy’s shed.
There are few people in this country more experienced at bodging, aka green wood chair making, than Gisborne’s only bodger, Jasper Murphy. He’s been splitting, shaping, turning, and assembling chairs in a corrugated-iron shed at the back of his organic citrus orchard for nearly two decades. Jason Burgess visits Jasper in his workshop and gets seduced by the rare skills and talent of Jasper the bodger.
Jude has got some news for us in his Back o’ The Shed column this issue — he’s sold up! He’s on the move. What does this mean? A new shed soon, we reckon.
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