Over the last couple of years, my son Kurt and I have built a few basic go-karts which not only gave him a taste of very basic engineering, but also allowed us to pile up valuable hours of quality time working together in the shed. This new project had a bit of a twist to it as, this time, my son was the chief designer and engineer and I was relegated to labourer. Like all the previous projects, he let me fund it.
In the November/December issue 105 of The Shed, our cover story is on a Kiwi legend of metal shaping and motorbikes, Steve Roberts.
If you enjoyed that article here is a link to a website that has even more of Steve’s story as well as videos of the cars and bikes he has constructed and inside info from chats with Steve.
For our purposes, a nut is an internally threaded part which is rotated or screwed onto an externally threaded part such as a screw, bolt or stud. If you can pick it up in your hand and put it onto an externally threaded item and tighten it, it is a nut. There will be some exceptions to this which will become apparent.
Converting an ordinary van into a campervan is a project I have been talking about for some time.
As a retired technical teacher, I felt I had the necessary skills, and when a 2005 Kia Pregio van in excellent condition became available I decided to take the plunge.
The van is a 2.7 litre diesel, manual, with 26,000 km on the clock and a cargo space of 2.8 metres x 1.65 metres. My plan was to fit the space with two beds, one on each side. They can be expanded to a full-width bed using the foam backs of the seats supported on shortboards between the sides of the seats.
In The Shed Issue 93, we visited Tempero motor body builders in Timaru where we left in awe of the workmanship and skills we witnessed. Here are scores more photos from our visit that we couldn’t squeeze onto our pages that are just too good to be left unseen by readers.
Photography by Brian High.
The allusion to knights and jousting is apt. Like knights in armour, the drivers especially of the sprint cars have very restricted vision. They can peer through the grille in front and can see a bit to the left but their right-hand vision is blocked by a wing and within the confines of the cockpit—with helmet and neck brace in place—they have very little opportunity to turn their heads. To make things worse, other cars are flinging up dust and mud that also helps to clog their vision.
If you haven’t heard of Autosol, you can thank us later.
This revolutionary, ammonia-free product is the go-to cleaner and polish for uncoated aluminium surfaces. It leaves a clean sheen without scratching or hazing. The distributors say users describe it as “a product that does everything the advertising says it does”, “my go-to polish for aluminium”, and “perfect for alloy wheel rejuvenation”. It is available in a 75ml tube with screw caps from automotive, engineering, and hardware stores across New Zealand.
Polishing metal isn’t a task for which you want to be ill-equipped, especially when you’re chasing that perfect shiny finish! That is why Autosol has been the most trusted name since forever. The new Autosol 3in1 for Stainless Steel is specially developed to clean, protect, and leave a shiny streak-free finish on stainless steel surfaces — with anti-fingerprint effect.
With toys, in particular, maintenance and reparability are important to ensure a long life. A broken plastic toy goes in the bin, whereas a well-designed wooden toy can make many trips to the repair shop over generations of play.
American teardrops first became common in the 1930s after DIY magazines such as Popular Mechanics published plans to build your own. The ultra-lightweight concept normally only sleeps a maximum of two adults in the cabin and has a small outside galley or kitchen at the back of the trailer. Often these campers weighed little more than 450kg and were very streamlined so were ideal for towing behind small cars or for long road trips.
The July/August 2020 issue of The Shed, No. 91, has got something in it for every sheddie.
Even though there is something of a nautical theme to this issue, our cover story is on building a very powerful, vertical, hydraulic log splitter. Bill Stevenson from Christchurch walks us through the construction of his trailer-mounted log-splitting machine that was started prior to the Covid-19 lockdown, worked on during, and completed immediately after. A great effort.
In this issue of the magazine we featured the trucks and workshop of Dan Cowper of Cowper Trucks in his shed just outside Whanganui.
Check out this video where Dan gives us the background to his business and how he builds his go anywhere, do anything, V8-powered, 4×4 vehicles.
Issue 90 of The Shed has a treat for lovers of fast off-road action. We visit the shed of Cowper Trucks who make world-beating 800hp 4×4 off-road race vehicles. Built strong, tough, and powerful from a shed outside Whanganui, this is automotive engineering at its best.
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.
The February/March Issue 89 of the shed is on sale nationwide from today.
Click on this link to get a fully illustrated run down on what’s in this issue.
The Shed magazine is eclectic, informed, and always fascinating. Aimed at those with a few tools and perhaps a few clues: this is the magazine for real sheddies.
Packed with ideas, projects, advice, and peeks into other people’s sheds providing inspiration, ideas, and techniques, or just for the sheer enjoyment of the sheddie’s endless inventiveness, The Shed is the project enthusiast’s bible.
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