Most people have separate places for work, play, accommodation and their hobbies but Malcolm Anderson has successfully managed to combine them all into one.
Malcolm’s father, Bruce Anderson, has a passion for collecting and restoring motorbikes to the highest standard. One of his projects, a 1929 Harley-Davidson OHV Two-port Special that he restored from a pile of parts, now resides in the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee in America.
In The Shed Issue 90 we featured this small family business working from a shed in their back garden.
Using a 100-year-old Hattersley Domestic Weaving System, the McLean’s make stunning fabrics using traditional techniques and thread.
Incidentally, this Hattersley loom became popular after WWI when they were embraced by returning soldiers who preferred to work from home rather than a crowded and often fraught mill environment.
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.
As New Zealand was in this stay at home order for five weeks, sheddies were busy and very active.
Here are some of them that shared their sheds, families and projects with us.
From his shed on the Central Plateau in the North Island, Ray Woodhouse creates totally unique pieces that are more than sculpture and more than a lamp. They would be a truly special addition to any space you choose to place them in.
An artist who we featured in Shed 82, only started this type of work when he retired. Ray has a working shed than many sheddies will envy.
In Issue 89 of The Shed we featured the work of John Hickey.
John created a career and a business for himself making unique furniture following a workshop injury which resulted in him losing the lower half of his left leg.
John is an inspirational sheddie.
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 design for this article is my everyday carry knife, a four-inch (100 mm) dropped hunter—an all-round knife whose blade is ample, large enough to skin that buck and small enough to carry all day without getting in the way.
One of the things guitar legend Eric Clapton and I have in common is tinnitus.
Eric blames the years he spent in the band Cream, playing in front of the bass speakers of fellow band member Jack Bruce, who always had his amplifier turned up to 11.
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.
It’s a hassle to clean out my workshop vacuum cleaner bag. Metal swarf tends to clip itself onto the fabric and I spend a lot of time picking off the bits individually.
Question: How to pick up small swarf in the workshop without sharp metal or other rubbish going into the vacuum cleaner bag?
Harley Coombe didn’t want a steel shed. “I’m a wooden shed man,” he says. “It’s easier to modify and hang stuff on the walls.”
Issue 89 of The Shed has a great mix of projects and sheddie talents to enjoy.
Nigel Young records the build of a mega-sized spit roast BBQ. Built by the team at the Halswell Menzshed as a fundraising project, this big trailer-mounted gas-burning beast of a cooker can take a full-sized pig for those big gatherings or fund-raising projects.
A video of Harry aboard his flying fox went viral and the story was viewed more than 164,000 times on the New Zealand Herald’s Facebook page, prompting hundreds of comments full of admiration for the “real Kiwi man”. Reporters trudged to his door and the phone rang red hot with people wanting his opinions on everything from sanity to the secret to happiness.
Making a hammer head is a project not really worth doing financially, given the cost of a handle alone vs. a new hammer and how easy it is to get an existing hammer and re-forge it to suit your special needs.
Having said that, mere project economics never stopped a true Sheddie.
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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