The Shed - Projects

A movable bench with fold-away legs

14 February 2025

Before I down-sized my workshop, I had a garage workshop area and plenty of room to have the traditional type of sawhorses or saw stools. Now I have just half of a double-garage which means the stools have to be stored out the back in all weathers.
I was looking at a sheet of 16 mm ply that was 1200 mm square and could see it would make two stools that would fold away flat and could be stored inside. They wouldn’t take up space standing permanently in the garage/workshop and they would need very little room folded away.

Waka building – Tradition goes hi-tech

4 February 2025

Architect, designer, sailor. Add lateral thinker, enthusiast and passionate Kiwi to the mix and you have the CV of a Christchurch man who has made it his mission to put Maori waka back on the water by marrying traditional knowledge with today’s technology.
Quentin Roake’s goal is to find a way to build waka in numbers, recreating the appearance and characteristics of traditional craft in a modern version that is portable, durable, and economical to manufacture.
“The big question is, how do you translate the traditional form of canoe into modern materials? You can’t cut down a big totara tree every time you want to make a canoe,” he says.
Quentin’s quest for a solution involved consultation with tohunga waka (canoe experts), including Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr and Sir Hekenukumaingaiwi (Hector) Busby, and led to Nga Waka Tangata kaupapa, a collaborative project to develop contemporary forms of waka.

From Rust to Rrroarrr video – part 1

21 December 2024

Out of the shed and into the sun – part 1
After storing his bike for 50 years, Peter has begun t o restore it. He doesn’t want his bike to look flashy and new; he just wants it to run well and look the part.
In The Shed magazine December/ January 2025 issue 118, we begin a six-part series on the restoration of a 1952 AJS motorbike.
This series of videos will accompany each article from the magazine.

My car the barbecue

13 December 2024

A mobile barbecue built out of an abandoned Holden Statesman? Why not. This clever conversion by Scott Edwards, a former freezing-worker-turned-motor-mechanic, was the pin-up attraction at a car, bike, truck and boat Show Day held in Riverton, the popular coastal resort town about 32 km west of Invercargill.
Scott is currently completing an adult motor mechanic apprenticeship but has always had a flair for anything to do with engines. He began early. Scott’s partner, Nicola Swain, says his mother had told her that Scott pulled apart every toy he got as a child, then put them back together again to see how they worked, before he played with them.

Small vehicle, large challenge

28 November 2024

The miniature Land Rover is called a Toylander and two lucky grandsons in Australia will soon be taking delivery of a toy that most kids only dream of. Toylander is based in the UK and sells plans and kitsets for a variety of vehicles. Graham came across their website and bought a set of Land Rover plans on impulse, thinking he could knock one up for one of his grandson’s birthdays.
Rather than being a quick job, the project got under his skin and became a bug that has seen the house renovations put on hold, the new shed delayed and a couple of birthdays slip by in the year and a half it has taken to complete.
Although the Toylander plans are comprehensive and highly detailed, Graham’s version has gone far beyond the basic instructions.

Steampunk toys

22 November 2024

A steampunk toy (for want of a better term) combines two passions of mine. I love making things that are a bit different, even a bit quirky. Something that stands out from the run of the mill stuff that you buy at the shops. Secondly, I enjoy the challenge of bringing together bits and pieces to make seemingly disparate objects into a semi-plausible whole toy. Steampunk toys give me the opportunity to do both.

Building a potting shed

15 November 2024

Among small buildings you can create without council building consent, a potting shed is very handy. The fact the builder agreed to put up this structure to get the gardening tools out of his shed is another story.
If you can possibly choose a flat site, do so. In this potting shed, the only site available was on a hill which meant a fair bit of work for the builder because of the extra labour and time.
Then in order to avoid the need for a building consent, measure the site up to ensure the 10 m2-or-less potting shed is no closer to the boundary or to a dwelling than its own height. In this case, the boundary is nearby but there are no dwellings close by to worry about. Here the original idea was a three-metre long building but it had to be shortened to 2.1 metres because the boundary was closer than first thought.

Build your own tinnie

25 October 2024

The aluminium runabout – better known as the tinnie – is the quintessential Kiwi bach boat. Most arrive in the backyard direct from the showroom or Trade Me, but Auckland boat designer Jim Pauling has created a new way of getting a tinnie: building it by kitset.
He has several sizes in his range. This one is the baby, the DIYNO 361, at 3.6 metres long. Thanks to improved technology and lower prices for power tools generally, it is much easier for the home handyman to pick up a welder, have a few practice runs on some scrap aluminium, or do a course at night school, and build his own kitset, 12-foot tinnie.
Pauling is a diehard fan of aluminium as a building material. Thanks to CNC (computer numerically controlled) cutters, it can be accurately cut to shape for sale as a kitset, which saves labour and vastly improves the result.

Looking hot

30 August 2024

I began by careful measurement of the existing barbecue and designed a framework around it. At the same time I decided to upgrade and purchased a reasonably cheap single burner that didn’t have a long burner tube to contend with.
The framework is essentially just four legs with a couple of bars to sit the barbecue on, two outriggers that can be used for the side burner and a table for placing meat before and after cooking. The barbecue is attached to the base by four screws through the lid hinge.
I cut all the parts on the bandsaw, starting with all the bevelled parts. I elected to make the four legs contiguous with the arms of the outriggers so they are welded together as one piece, rather than making the outriggers as separate pieces and welding them to the tops of the legs.

Getting floored

22 August 2024

After Christchurch’s 2011 earthquake many of the city’s brick structures were damaged beyond repair and were pulled down and almost every chimney in our part of town was demolished. Before the earthquake, clean red bricks were more than a dollar each; after, there were so many of them, they had no value. Many property owners left piles of bricks on the kerb in the hope that they would be taken away.
The carport of my shed was meant to have a concrete floor but because of the many free bricks and the unavailability of pre-mixed concrete for weeks, I decided to make the floor out of recycled “earthquake” bricks.
The original scheme to incorporate the numbers “2011” for the year in yellow glazed bricks was too complicated in the time available. But a paved floor can be relatively easily re-worked so the number may yet appear.

Buckets of heat

2 August 2024

When a high wind-gust blew a tree onto the overhead cable on our Waikato property, one of the phase wires broke. In our home, the electric stove and half the lights stopped working. That night, it was just as well we had our clay-lined bucket stoves to cook on.
The observant traveller visiting Asia soon becomes aware that the clay-lined bucket stove is the prime means of cooking for families, street stalls and even for up-market restaurants. In heavy Bangkok traffic, we saw a family of five on a small motorbike. They were carrying a bamboo pole with bamboo trays suspended from each end. One tray was piled high with food for the market and balancing on the other end was a bucket stove (which had been lit and was hot).

Kaizen in wood

12 July 2024

Kaizen is Japanese for a philosophy of continuous improvement, or working methodically seeking to achieve small, incremental changes in the process of improving. This term has been particularly championed by Toyota Motor Corporation as a process to facilitate change within that organisation.
For me, it epitomises my woodworking journey since retirement. I had dabbled in bigger stuff—from building and construction to boat-building (three launches) and fitting out—as sidelines and sanity savers during my years in corporate life.
But when I turned to small and delicate it necessitated a rethink. Thus “kaizen,” which seems to have been driving incremental changes in what and how my projects have evolved.

New life for old stuff

5 July 2024

Broken blades, tired tools, worn washers, grimy gears. These are sorry sights for most sheddies, but for Bruce Derrett they are the treasures of his trade. The Motueka metal artist combines his skill wielding a MIG welder with a highly fertile imagination to turn other people’s junk into quirky creatures, funky furniture, and striking sculptures.
Bruce, who ironically failed metal work at school, has always had an eye for mechanical bits and pieces. “As a kid I was always pulling things apart, like clocks and radios. It used to really frustrate my mum,” he says. Now he puts things back together again, albeit it in a very different form.

Bow making – take aim!

21 June 2024

Archery is a satisfying sport that has its roots fixed in the primal skill of hunting. As a woodworker it is an added bonus that you can make at least part of your own bow yourself. A bow like the one in this project is called a recurve and consists of a handle, or riser, two limbs (the flexible parts that bend), a string and an arrow rest.

Making a kayak anchor

13 June 2024

This simple and effective rebar anchor is perfect for small boats and kayaks and is the result of welding $30-40 worth of materials. If you are a small boat and kayak enthusiast, fabricator or just want to learn some new metalwork skills, this two-hour project will be great for you; it needs few welding skills. Remember that the construction is modular and can be made to fit your needs.
With a net weight of only 7 kg, the anchor will not weigh down a boat or kayak. Anyone can pull it up, but it will still catch the seabed.

Projects