Latest news and features
The most fun you can have on three wheels!
Cambridge sheddie Kim Dawick decided to build a drift trike for a mate’s birthday. It was relatively simple and so much fun to ride he decided to build eight more to bring the old gang from school back together. Click through to see the Kim take Mike’s trike for a spin, and another one, and another one….
Can you open the right door for someone near you?
In the good old days, kids who had an aptitude for trades or technical subjects would discover this at school in woodwork, metalwork, tech drawing, and the like. They would then move into apprenticeships. Today, many trades today are crying out for new entrants. Many youngsters have had a non-stop diet of academic study so they may have no idea they could have great hand skills and a promising career in a trade. It’s up to us to spot that talent and steer them in the right direction.
The Shed Issue 81, Nov/Dec 2018 on sale now
In The Shed 81, Nov/Dec 2018 issue, we head to Blenheim to meet school teacher and dedicated sheddie Dave Pauling.
Dave makes extraordinary guitars in his shed from recycled native timber and shares his skills with us so readers can have a go too. He nicknames some of his electric guitars ‘Les Paulings’ – nice touch.
Photos from the Auckland Blade Show, October 6 & 7 2018
The 2018 Auckland Blade Show in Parnell this weekend was a huge success. Over 25 knife makers from all over NZ took stands as well as a shop from Gameco Artisan Supplies. A steady stream of visitors enjoyed an awesome display of great Kiwi knife making with no exhibitor quite like another. Organiser Brent Sandow promised us all we won’t have to wait as long for the next event which will require a larger venue to accomodate all the knife makers that couldn’t attend this 2018 Auckland show. If you are a fan of knives and knife making, do not miss the next show.
Build a basic trailer – part one
A crucial step in building this trailer is to get the axle stub straight, otherwise your tyres will chop up as they run. I use a jig of angle iron to get this straight. But I can show how to do it for home workshop, simply by holding the axle stub firmly against the bottom and one side of the box section axle to ensure it is square. There must be good welds on the axle stub.
New lower subscription rates for Australia
More good news for Australian Shed readers – we have just lowered our magazine subscription rates for you. Now that we are shipping copies of The Shed for newsagents to sell nationwide, we can also include subscription copies and avoid those huge postal costs. An Australian subscription was NZ$130, now only NZ$94! Dive in, head to magstore.nz to sign up.
Another reason to subscribe to The Shed
If you often wonder whether you should subscribe to The Shed magazine, this just may be the reason you have been looking for.
Go your own way: Have fun making your own coffin
As the saying goes, there are only two certainties; death and taxes. While we can do little about the latter, we can at least be prepared for the former. That is the motivation behind the group that gathers every Wednesday in a former warehouse in Rotorua
Find your copy of The Shed magazine in Australia
Great news for Australian Shed magazine readers, The Shed is now on sale again in all Australian states at all good newsagents.
Click on this link for a complete list of Australian retail outlets so you can find your nearest stockist. Welcome back to The Shed.
https://www.theshedmag.co.nz/…/find-your-local-australian-t…
Electric motorbike build
As a designer and motorcyclist, I had the idea of building an electric motorbike for a long time. The opportunity arose when I was in my final year of an honours degree in industrial design at Victoria University. I rode a 1987 Honda VFR400 to my lectures and the bike started having engine problems. I pulled out all combustion-related components and sold them. By the time I had a plan for an electric motorbike laid out I was part-way through a post-graduate diploma in Computer Aided Design (CAD) at Christchurch Polytechnic.
The Shed magazine is back on sale in Australia
Great news for Australian Shed magazine readers, The Shed is now on sale again in all Australian states at all good newsagents.
Find your local Australian retailer for The Shed magazine
Click here to load this Caspio Cloud Database Create a Free Online Database
Video of Judy Waterston, blacksmith in Duntroon North Otago
In this short video we head to a small town in North Otago to enjoy the ancient skill of the blacksmith. This smithy is unique in that it also acts as a school that a group of farmers rallied together to ensure its survival. As featured in Issue 80 of The Shed
Make your own linisher
A linisher is near the top of the list of the most-used tools in the workshop, whether for deburring steel to stop cuts in the hands, or sharpening tools and drills. There are few projects where it doesn’t get used. They seem to be expensive for what they are, and can easily be made for a fraction of the purchase price. The budget using new parts for this project is around $400.
Video of Des Thomson and his workshop dust extractor system
In Issue 80 of The Shed, Des Thomson gave a step by step guide on how to build a workshop dust extractor system from an old vacuum and a few bits of metal. In this video he demonstrates his mobile unit for housing the finished extractor set up.
Child’s play: How to make a cubby
My daughter in Christchurch emailed that she would like a cubby house for her three young children. They had recently moved into their new house and there was a 1.5 x 5 metre garden strip adjacent to the fence in the back yard. I had read Rod Kane’s excellent article in the August/ September 2013 issue of The Shed on building a playhouse and thought at the time what a fun project that would be, so the planets were in alignment.
The Shed Issue 80, September/October 2018
When we met Des Thomson and his expanding motorhome pod in Issue 76 of The Shed, we were very impressed with his workshop dust extractor. Happily for us all, Des has found the time to share with us how he builds these machines using and an old vacuum and the minimum of parts. Follow his step by step build of a workshop dust extractor in this Issue 80 of The Shed.
Father’s Day products for Dad
Keep Dad comfortable, entertained, and productive with these great products. We’re counting down to Father’s Day with twenty days of dad deals.
Restoring a roller.. or three
What car maker would give every different bolt on a vehicle a different number and make sure every nut and bolt had a 3 percent chrome content? We’re talking about the same manufacturer that would put platinum on the faces of the distributor points so they would virtually last forever and “hang the cost”.
Yep, we’re talking Rolls-Royce and while their cars always mean the highest standards, their early cars were totally in a class of their own.
Making a Classic Work Bench: Part Two – Making the Tail Vice
Right so now that your back from your warm sunny Pacific Island holiday—taken to recover from making the benchtop and frame—it’s time to get working on the vice. What we have on our hands is a beautiful little project of reasonable complexity that demands accuracy, uses both hand and machine-skills and is incredibly satisfying both when making it and using it.
Make a Classic Work Bench: Part One
Why a cabinetmaker’s bench? Since the founding of the Centre for Fine Woodworking, we have built benches especially to meet our needs. The bench is fundamental in its role within any workshop and we feel the higher the quality the bench is, the more care will be taken in its use.
The Shed is now on Instagram
Search theshedmag on Instagram to get more shed goodness. If you like your sheddie stories in photos and just a few words, then follow us on Instagram. Lots of posts going up every week for you to get a real Shed feast on your smart phone.
Video of Carmen Simmonds, glass artist
In Issue 79 of The Shed we featured Whanganui glass artist Carmen Simmonds. In this video by Tracey Grant, Carmen shows us in some detail a few of her creative practices and we showcase some of her outstanding creations with glass and occasionally brass. Carmen is currently president of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass.
Have you got a shed project for us?
We are always looking for great projects to feature in The Shed magazine and website. Are you building and creating a project that would interest other sheddies? Let us know and we will send our team around to document the task and share it with other sheddies all around the world.
Shed 78 prize-winning subscribers
We love giving stuff away and some of our subscribers win big each issue. We had these two Teng prize packs up for grabs in the May/June issue and here are the lucky winners.
Tony Schmetzer of Christchurch and Peter Mills of Auckland each win one of these $1100 Teng packages. Well done guys and if you aren’t a Shed subscriber maybe its time to change that. The odds of winning a prize are better than Lotto so there’s yet another reason!
ttps://magstore.nz/collections/the-shed-magazine-subscription-options
Video of master birdhouse builder Steven Price
When builder Steven Price suffered a severe neck injury at work he turned the accident into an opportunity. The Whanganui sheddie no longer mounts scaffolding; instead he designs and constructs much smaller buildings. Enjoy this video and see Steven creating and discussing his work using totara and kauri to make stunningly unique birdhouse creations in his garden and shed.
Secrets of amplification
Electronic amplifiers are widely used in almost all electronic equipment— they can either be a separate piece of equipment or an electrical circuit within another device. The ability to amplify is fundamental to modern electronics, where a small electrical signal is amplified into a larger output signal with increased power output or signal strength.
Let the sun run your pump
I suppose all waterfalls are solar- powered – the sunshine evaporates the water which turns into clouds, becoming rain which pours down into waterfalls. So the publisher’s challenge to make a small solar- powered pump for Greg’s sculpture seemed not too difficult.
Making a leather knife sheath
While you can make a knife sheath from any type of heavy leather, vegetable tanned leather, or russet as it is commonly known, will make the best sheath. Most leather for clothing and upholstery is chemically tanned by the chrome method whereas vegetable tanned leather is tanned with oak and various other species of tree barks that tanners have found to be suitable in producing good leathers.
Video of Graham and Val Hawtree’s vintage radio collection – part two
In this second video of this vintage and valve radio collection from Shed Issue 78, we watch Graham do some repairs to a radio that has just arrived in his workshop.
Installing a Kitchen
Kitchens are the heart of a house, the control room around which everything revolves, and a room that gets a lot of use, more so than any other. It’s also a workplace where meals are prepared and often consumed. It’s a hard traffic area that sees a lot of action. Kitchen styles are constantly changing and traditionally there has been a trade off between functionality and design within a set budget.
Video of clockmaker and engineer, David Curry
Aucklander David Curry shares with us his shed where he makes skeleton clocks, stationary engines, tools and more.
The Shed Issue 79, July/August 2018
In The Shed Issue 79, July/August 2018, we head to Wellington to document Shea Stackhouse making a small knife from Damascus steel, fondly known as a Puukka (that’s Finnish for small knife). While we are there we hang around to meet some knife fans who receive knife making advice from Shea at one of his regular knifemaking classes.
Time for A Spherical Clock
Here is a step by step guide to making a stylish 36mm small clock, inserted into a 50mm sphere and placed on a tapered stand which you can make easily with your woodturning lathe.
Enjoy making these clocks to sell or just for the pleasure of pursuing a hobby. For this clock, the author used pohutukawa for its density of colour and rich finish.
Video of Graham & Val Hawtree’s vintage radio collection – part one
Wander through and enjoy this huge collection of vintage and classic radios and meet the passionate owners of this amazing collection, Graham and Val Hawtree.
Extra unpublished photos of a Plymouth Superbird Muscle car restoration
It took motor engineer Michael Wolfe over 1100 hours to fully restore this rare Plymouth Super Bird muscle car for its Taranaki owner. We featured the rebuild in The Shed Issue 78 and these shots are all the photos we couldn’t squeeze into the printed article. Enjoy.
Arduino 101: Part 4
In the last issue we presented a project to create a temperature regulator. In this issue we will show you how to include an LCD that displays the highest and lowest temperatures, along with the current temperature. In the sketch I have also included a section that scrolls text, as a demonstration.
Cufflinks for an Occasion
For this pair of links, I used a textured surface I took from a slab of natural cork that I once attacked with an engineer’s wire brush. I have used this over the years on hundreds of pieces of jewellery from rings to earrings and bracelets.
Arduino 101 Part 3
In this article, we show how an arduino microprocessor is complex enough to exercise variable control, not just the expected computer approach which is that something is working, or it is not. Digital devices have only two states: on or off. An analogue device on the other hand can have a near infinite range of states.
