The magnificent Seven
When Athanasius (Athow) Santamaria made an “impulse decision”, to buy a pile of old Austin parts in 2015, he didn’t really have a project in mind.
But this young kiwi sheddie, with no car building experience at all, figured he would have a crack at building a car from this pile of parts. Now, he is well down the track to completing an authentic reproduction Austin Seven Ulster; a scratch-built, boat-tail, two-seater sports car.
Anthow south guidance and advice from Austin and vehicle restorers far and wide and the result is really quite remarkable. There is still some way to go but the skills he has acquired on his journey is apparent for all to see.
“The Ulster body is shaped from 5005 aluminium, which is a little harder than industry standard 3003.
Athow lays up his draft drawings – angles, curve lines, step-ups – on sheets of ply. He says he will eventually convert them to CAD.
“I trace the drawings onto baking paper, transfer them onto sheet steel, cut it out with combinations of shears, a nibbler, and some good old Gilbos, then finish with a file.
“I don’t have a folder; I will get one, but sometimes they can limit you to size and dimensions. I was taught to do it by hand. Clamp the work using angle iron, then tap a piece of wood to ‘bruise’ the fold line into it.”
From the archives – Building an acoustic guitar – part 1
Only feel truly alive while strumming a guitar? How about taking that self-expression a step further and building your own.
This is part 1 of our three part series on how to build your own acoustic guitar written by Rob Bentley from the Centre for Fine Woodworking in Nelson.
“Building an acoustic guitar is a very satisfying project that is within reach of most people with a modicum of woodworking experience. I have speed-built a guitar within a week, but, for a more considered approach, it is more usual to take three to four weeks. Most tools required are in the general woodworking shop; some simple ones that are luthiery specific can be easily made or adapted from other tools. Access to a thickness sander is almost essential, but, with patience, there’s not much that can’t be achieved by planing/scraping/sanding.“
The best hut ever!
For a DIYer who has left-over bits and pieces lying around, building a child’s playhouse need not be a costly undertaking.
The Shed’s regular contributor Nigel Young details how he went about this very worthy project for his grandson.
“My six-year-old grandson, Mars, has been diagnosed as autistic. With his birthday coming up, I decided to build him a hut – one that could go outside or in the garage; one where he could do whatever he wanted to and it wouldn’t be a problem.
Mars likes tools, so a place where he could randomly hammer some nails, for example, was part of the thinking. Mars is always on the go, bouncing from one activity to another, to the point at which I’ve taken to calling him ‘Jumping Jack’. After a brief conversation with his parents, I set to work.”
Introduction to Arduino UNO R4 (Playing Chess) – Part 2
How to replicate the features of the Arduino WiFi board to enable a game of chess using the cheaper Minima version. Our enterprising electronics team of Enrico Miglino and Luis Garcia are back to help readers learn and make projects using the new Arduino UNO R4
“In this instalment, we will see how to replicate the features of the Arduino WiFi board version using Arduino UNO R4 Minima connected to an external ESP32 S3 via the I2C protocol.
The MCU on the two models is the same, and this makes it possible to also have the Minima board playing chess via telnet”
Off the grid
Murray gives his kiwi-designed Paper Tiger a makeover and proves a home-build can still take line honours.
Our ever resourceful off-the-gridder, Murray Grimwood, loves doing all his running repairs and projects himself and his catamaran also seems to present no problems for him. Is there nothing our Murray can’t turn his hand to?
“In the Kiwi sailing world, there are a handful of evergreen designs; ones that got it so right that they’ve stood the test of time. The Starling dinghy, the Noelex 22, and the Farr 727 come to mind; but the one I have the most affection for is a wee catamaran known as the Paper Tiger.
I noted the design when I was 20ish but didn’t get to sail one until I was 46; I mildly regret that delay, and from here on I’ll sail one until I can’t. Given that I’ve been putting most of my sheddie effort into my own Paper Tiger lately, it seemed an obvious topic for this issue’s column.”
The shed that ate the house
Living in the dream – a factory-sized shed crammed with a diverse array of treasures.
You know how it goes. You find yourself a nice big warehouse space to live in and complete those big projects you just need to get on with. Well here’s a couple who did just that but the living area kept shrinking and the workshop kept growing as the projects became more numerous and larger. This could happen to any of us, right?
“Let’s start at the beginning. Marty’s petrolhead father had a strange love affair with the German automaker NSU, home of the Wankel rotary engine. A frugal man, he worked two jobs and would never pay for something he could do or make himself, meaning he had little time for the kids (or for the wife, who left) – although that does not seem to have stopped Marty from turning out in a similar mould. Through car club connections, the young Marty, driving his massively overpowered Capri V8, met Zoe, a young solo mum in a luxurious, throbbing Camaro. A petrol-soaked romance became a 23-year relationship, and still counting.”
The versatile wooden pallet
Making something out of nothing at all
The wooden pallet has many uses, it’s sturdy and made of good solid timber, what’s not to like?
Here Alex Broxholme shares some of his versatile uses for this under appreciated, and often discarded, very affordable product.
“About eight months ago, the groundworks contractor that rented my yard went out of business. Among the many things left behind were dozens of wooden pallets – some in good condition, some not so great. I do hate waste, but it’s not always easy to use them as anything other than, well, pallets, unless you get creative.”
Electronics – Sino:bit
This Chinese microcontroller enables computer learning in a number of languages.
Mark Beckett writes “I have to admit that I was rather late to the party with this device, which was introduced in late 2017.
Readers may have heard of the BBC micro:bit (The Shed July–August 2018), which was developed to enable UK schoolchildren to learn coding. It was cloned by Calliope, with added features and on-board hardware. Then came the sino:bit.”
Chris Gordon keeps busy – Part 2
For most of us, building or restoring a motorcycle would be a mammoth undertaking. Not so Chris Gordon – he decided to build three!
In this second of our three part series on this very busy and accomplished sheddie, we visit Chris and learn all about how he went about building some unique motorcycle engines. There’s a lot of detail, advice and info here for lovers of engine building.
“The rockers (from Lifan) and the valves (copies of Honda CF250 scooter valves) also came from AliExpress. Each cylinder has two spark plugs, as the only positions available for a spark plug were off to the sides of the four-valve cylinder head, which may have been less than optimal for efficient burning of the fuel/air mixture had there only been one plug. Chris’s solution was to have two spark plugs, one on each side of the head. The plugs are ancient items – Champion C5s – designed to be disassembled for cleaning. They were sourced from vintage car swap meets, and have been machined to allow a small modern plug (also from China) to be hidden inside.”
The Shed shrink
Time: the precious gift that we so often forget to value.
It’s so easy to rush around in our busy lives and not take a moment to smell the roses. Our resident mental health expert Mark Seek, asks us to just take a moment to appreciate what we have.
“Personally, I have become increasingly aware of time and what constitutes good use of it. I often find myself automatically distinguishing between what I need to do as opposed to what others expect me to do.”
Safety in the shed – Tinnitus
The sound that no one else can hear.
It’s so easy to dive into workshop tasks and forget to put your safety gear on. Sometimes you regret not doing so and it’s too late to stop injuring yourself. Tinnitus is one injury that is very easy to avoid and we all should as there currently appears to be no cure.
“Not everyone who has damaged hearing experiences tinnitus and not everyone who has tinnitus has damaged hearing, but the vast majority of tinnitus sufferers have hearing loss. So what can be done?
Professor Grant Searchfield is the Director of the University of Auckland’s Hearing and Tinnitus Clinic, and he is actively researching treatments.”
Pest control – make a possum trap
Live and let live worked well until the nightly visitors began eating the strawberries.
We all know the pests are out there but if they don’t bother us, well, go for it mate. But if they start being an actual pest to you and your family, it’s time to stand your ground and deal with the blighters.
“The neighbour had been using a drop-door trap, so I set about copying the principle.
Version 1 worked fine until the ravages of time took hold. Version 2 was made but, while it has been very successful, it’s starting to flex and the past few possums have been desperate to get out, so it’s time to make it stronger, and share the design.”
Small is big in Bill Thomas’s shed
A creative spirit knows no boundaries.
Good things do take time, we all know that. It was 1983 when Bill was on holiday in the USA and spotted this miniature house, and now some 40 years later, he has completed the build. The house kit was only the exteriors, all the interiors Bill had to create himself. The result is breathtaking.
“We walk into Bill Thomas’s Waikanae Beach house through his shed. The trestle tables in the shed are filled with things Bill plans to show us but they have dust-sheets over them for now.
Inside his home, a tiny house awaits. The tiny-house project is a huge achievement that has taken Bill 40 years. He is justifiably proud of it and wants to show it to us first.”
Back o’ The Shed – OK, Boomer!
We haven’t been perfect … but things are, overall, better than when we started.
The Shed magazine founder, Jude Woodside, thinks maybe the baby boomers can take a bit of pride in what we have done for the planet, I mean, it could have been a lot worse, right?
“Every generation eventually fades away, and my generation is doing so now. We are often portrayed as a self-indulgent generation. To some extent, there is truth in that. We were always pushing the boundaries for new experiences, whether in music, personal fulfilment, or just for fun. We were the first generation that didn’t really have to work quite as hard as our parents had.”
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