Indholdsfortegnelse for No 115 June - July 2024 i The Shed

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and this edition’s main feature story is not only one for readers to enjoy but also one to spice up their lives, I hope. Our cover story in this issue is on one Larry Killip. Who, I hear you ask? Well, when I say that he’s a talented musician, recording engineer, record producer, jingle writer, and also the go-to guy for microphone repairs (he’s known as ‘The mic guy’), you will probably still say: who? However, when I say, “Gotta get a garage, gotta get a gottage, gotta get a Skyline”, you’ll realise: oh, he’s that guy. The Shed magazine is all about clever Kiwis doing clever stuff in their sheds and, while this story is a tad different for us, let…

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In this third instalment, we complete the notes on the application testing that we developed to verify the performance of the Arduino Uno R4, including the extra boost provided by the use of the ESP32-S3. As already discussed in the previous articles, there is a Minima version of the Arduino Uno R4 that does not include the ESP32-S3 (a powerful ARM microcontroller); we avoided this limitation by adding an external ESP32-S3 device, facing a challenging issue on the power lines. Arduino Uno R4 multicore I recall the architecture of game systems and arcade boards from the ’80s and ’90s, which operated multiple processors coexisting on the same board. Each was dedicated to a specialised task, so the board handled well-defined and independent tasks in parallel. It was a meaningful technological…

I’m riding south through rural Canterbury, in search of my next article. The Enfield chugs along as I take in the views: scorched hills, bales of winter feed drying in the long summer sun, 4WD utes in the distance eating up miles of dusty gravel roads then disappearing into hinterlands. I can also see dried-up riverbeds and red corrugated roofs with those elegant rolled verandas. This is the mainland, people, where Swanndri, Red Band gumboots, Canterbury short shorts, and Sheffield pies reign supreme. What more can I say; I love this place and have called it home for the past seven years. Lots of growth here “Exodus: movement of Jah people”, as penned by Bob Marley, comes to mind. Canterbury is one of the fastest growing regions. Small towns are…

Maybe The Shed and kids seems an unlikely combination, but when you are a kid living in an adult body, it kinda makes more sense. I’ve got three kids, and my younger ones, Bella and Jamie, have become quite the crafty little groms. So, why not harness that creative streak and build the ultimate fingerboard skateboard park? Let’s get started This project’s inspiration came from a random Trade Me find for a brand-new but slightly damaged door for the princely sum of $5. What a great platform for a project! At the time, the kids were hooked on an Auckland-based Youtuber, David Jones, with his one million followers. He makes very entertaining videos based on fingerboard skateboarding (miniature skateboards that you ride with your fingers). “The theme was – you…

On 20 June 1974, Mitre 10 announced its formation as a New Zealand–owned cooperative, bringing the ‘Mitre 10’ brand name across the Tasman with the blessing of the Australian company of the same name. The funny thing is, I remember hearing the announcement on the radio. I was 16 at the time, working as a hammer hand for Keith Hay Homes – another iconic Kiwi company – so why that stuck with me for all these years, I do not know. However, 50 years on, Mitre 10’s celebration as the cornerstone of Kiwi DIY and the home improvement go-to has grown from an initial buying-and-selling cooperative of eight stores to 84 in 2024. In this, the first of two articles, we’ll go back to the hardware stores of the late…

Readers may recall that I investigated and purchased a CNC router (The Shed, Issue No. 80, September/October 2018). It’s been very useful, and I still use it. However, I’ve started exceeding its capabilities, meaning that some projects have been abandoned. While I thought 75mm Z-axis was enough, it’s the 118mm clearance that I’ve struggled with. Once you add a work-holding jig, you have even less room. I designed a method of improving the bed holding and rigidity, and gaining 5–6mm, but it was still not enough, so I looked at other options. Thankfully, Zealandia Systems has introduced a new model that suits my needs. Several years in the making The Discovery Gantry Router (Discovery GR) has been several years in the pipeline and offers features and capabilities not previously seen…

In any detailed vehicle restoration, there is surely nothing more satisfying than climbing behind the steering wheel and sitting back to admire the finishing touches that make all the difference. The paint, the chrome, and the trim all look great, as does the interior with its new-car smell capped off with soft new carpet. The instrument panel is clean and fresh, while the touches of polished wood or machine-turned metal surrounding those carefully restored gleaming gauges catch your eye. As your hands move slowly over the steering wheel, a sudden, sharp reality sets in. Despite your best efforts, that wheel doesn’t seem good enough; you immediately think it could have been better. That’s exactly the dilemma Otago car enthusiast Gary McNeill faced some years ago while restoring his car. He…

It’s a gas Use industrial gas for your shed projects? Chances are you’re paying ongoing cylinder rental fees whether you’re using the gas or not. Eziswap Gas works differently. It operates a ‘cylinder swap’ system. Customers initially buy a full cylinder of their required gas or gas mix, use the gas, then swap the empty cylinder for a full one, paying only for the gas used. This way, customers avoid paying any ongoing cylinder rental fees. Worried about the initial cost? You can buy a cylinder of your choice from the Eziswap Gas website (eziswapgas.co.nz) and check out with Afterpay. Using Afterpay, you can spread the cost over eight weeks (conditions apply). With more than 57 swap centres nationwide, Eziswap Gas is a better way to purchase industrial gas. It’s…

Over three weeks, various events involving things running on wheels are occurring in the South Island town of Ashburton. They involve, among others, sprint cars, motorcycles, scooters, go-karts, hot rods, and vintage cars. For many years, the Ashburton branch of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand (VCC) has been holding a swap meet at its Tinwald site on the first Saturday of May. I have heard claims that this is the longest running swap meet in the country; it is certainly a big event. I was there for almost three hours this year and I didn’t get around the whole thing. Not just car parts Swap meets have evolved greatly over the decades, and at some (Ashburton’s would be a good example) the number of vendor sites selling car-related…

Soundboard After joining, the outside face of the soundboard needs to be smoothed, using the thickness sander and taking care to remove the minimum of material. Draw on the outline of the guitar, using the template and aligning on the centreline. Measure from the template where the centre of the sound-hole will be and mark this on the top. A circle cutter with a small spike in the underside will allow accurate cutting of both the inside and outside diameter of the rosette channel to a depth of 1–1.5mm. The channel width is cut so that the material used for the rosette – for example, a strip of herringbone-pattern purfling – is a snug fit; otherwise glue lines will show around the edge of the rosette. The waste between the…

Off-grid living consists of a never-ending list of to-dos, which in turn get prioritised by urgency – or sometimes by the looks she gives me! Over summer, I’d been avoiding the list to concentrate on sailing, so there was a bit of a backlog. That wasn’t helped by my back ‘going out’ in response to tackling the list – a recurring problem; the wings of my L5 vertebra never formed properly. So here I sit at the computer, dosed with anti-inflammatories, to record progress thus far. New, smarter batteries First on our list was installing our four newly bought 100Ah LiFePo4 batteries. We’d run second-hand lead-acid units forever; mostly gel, all deep-cycle, but it was time to try this longer lived, more forgiving storage format. Their ability to discharge down…

A shed brings men together in one community space to share their skills, have a laugh, and work on personal projects or within a group for the shed or community. Sheds and their members decide the projects to undertake. However most sheds throughout New Zealand take on some community projects, examples include repairing toy library stock, building playgrounds for early learning centres, repairing old bikes for community distribution, building planter boxes for the main street of the local central business district, the list goes on. The shed is a great place for blokes to learn new skills. We see builders teaching engineers some of their skills and vice versa. Sheds have been operating in New Zealand since 2008. The last decade has seen the number of sheds across both urban…