The Shed

Wood Turning

FOR A SPECIAL piece of wood craft in the home, a smoothly finished bowl with its rough natural bark retained on the rim will always have extra appeal. The best timber for this kind of bowl is any fruit tree, the flowering cherry tree, olive tree or any tree with not too thick bark. Pohutukawa is a good wood, but the bark is fragile.

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Catalina dreaming

Anyone flying into New Plymouth airport may look twice at a hangar on the western end of the airfield with an unusual tail of a large aircraft poking out. Few would realise what’s within: ZK-PBY, a 1944 Catalina flying boat, the only airworthy one in New Zealand and a remarkable aircraft with a remarkable history.

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Build a simple casting furnace

SOME TIME ago I decided to resurrect an old three-wheel bandsaw from wood-cutting to metal-cutting. This entailed changing the blade and, more importantly, changing its cutting speed. I sat down and worked out a simple system involving the change of a pulley for a larger one.

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