Innehållsförteckning för No 086 September-October 2019 från The Shed

Many feeding problems are caused by improper handling of the gun cable or wire. • Do not kink or pull the cable around sharp corners. Keep the gun cable as straight as possible when welding. • Do not allow people to stand on or run over the MIG gun or leads. • Innershield wire has proper surface lubrication on it. Hard wire does not, so use only clean, rust-free wire. • Replace the nozzle contact tip when it becomes worn or the end appears fused or deformed. • Your MIG torch is the delivery device for your gas and wire. Look after it. • Replace your torch tip regularly. They do not last forever.…

Most people I know choose wire based on user appeal. Solid wire and flux-cored wire are both easy enough to use and are ideal for novice or part-time welders working in automotive, farming, and home or hobby applications. My personal preference, because of operator appeal, is solid wire. I feel it is slightly better on thinner applications and there is no slag to remove; it is ready to paint; and is more aesthetically pleasing for the bigger jobs that I do. But in saying that, I keep my MIG loaded with 0.9mm gasless wire for all the mates who drop in and want this-and-that welded. I’m owed about 20 slabs of beer.…

All mid-drive motors like to rev, so avoid taking off in a high gear and using too much throttle unless pedalling normally. If you subject the controller to high or maximum amps and the motor isn’t revving sufficiently then a lot of heat is generated internally which can destroy the controller. This is why a lot of brands don’t fit throttles to their bikes; they are dumbed down to avoid problems from misuse. However, these motors will go for many thousands of kilometres if they are used properly. You wouldn’t take off in top gear in a manual car, so why treat your bike motor any differently?…

You know how it goes: it started as the replacement of the shower door and the shower rose fitting. The door had three overlapping and sliding panels that were forever coming of their tracks and trapping my wife, Rosaleen, in the shower. The shower rose also sprayed in all directions and many of the holes were blocked. When I started to remove the old shower door, I noticed that the shower wall linings looked a bit dodgy, the bottom edges were breaking up where they touched the sides of the stainless-steel base pan, so I decided to replace the wall linings as well. The spec sheet says they should sit clear so that the bottom drip edge can function properly. Not a difficult job, but the new HardieGlaze panels are…

LED lighting has been touted as the solution to energy consumption and is something that the homeowner can change. I’m not 100 per cent convinced about LEDs, but I’ve seen some poor lighting installations that would suit changing to make it more economical for the homeowner. You’d think it’d be a simple matter of swapping the lamp, but there are some traps for the unwary, and hopefully this article will help make those choices easier. History of lights Back in the ’60s the rooms in most houses had a single lamp hanging from the ceiling. There was some form of shade that screwed on just above the lamp which threw some of the light downwards. If you wanted more light you stuck a larger lamp in the holder, which worked…

Dennis was much taken by Emil Nye’s list of his favourite tools in The Shed Issue No. 85. Dennis’s favourites are the King Dick–brand adjustable spanners in a variety of sizes from about 100mm to 250mm in length. They were made in England and patented in the 1880s. One has “British Made” stamped on it. He considers that they are superior to the US variety such as the Crescent brand because they have larger jaws which open wider and are more stable. I had a look through my tool drawers and found three of the smaller type. Two are marked “British Made”, the third is stamped “Shelly”. I buy these when I see them because they are part of the tool-kit which Austin Seven cars were sold with before World…

Jack has created about 300 driftwood creatures and most of his work is on commission. He has made 48 moa, from 1m to 5m high. These are pretty popular. One buyer has a family of five moa on his Bay of Islands property. He has created wild pigs, deer, a giraffe, hawks, fish, and lions. Sir Richard Taylor of Weta Workshops commissioned a tahr — a type of wild goat — and a wild pig for his wife’s garden. Tony Morrell commissioned three moa for an Ellerslie Flower Show exhibit. Jack won the People’s Choice award at the biennial New Zealand Sculpture OnShore in Auckland with a full-size Asian elephant, and his 5m long humpback whale won the same award in the following event. A big driftwood bullock pulling a…

What’s happening online at www.the-shed.nz? Every week we upload new content on The Shed website to join the 100s of articles and videos already on the site for readers to discover, learn from, and enjoy. The past two months’ new uploads include: • make a violin — parts one and two. Be impressed with the many steps involved making a fine instrument • how to fix that wavering drill press — watch an expert sort out this drill press with alignment issues • porcelain drill solutions using Tusk VB core bits — watch this video and be very impressed at what these core bits can do • on fire — learn how to make a brazier (very carefully) from an old LPG cylinder. These are just some of the new…

Traditional barrel making is an ancient art, involving a slow and sensitive technique. Russell Cooper points to a video showing a German barrel-making outfit at work. It mills timber, assembling a number of boards, or ‘staves’, brushed with water, into a cylindrical shape, and then lighting a small fire within this circle. Gradually, and painstakingly, the coopers tighten a large vice around the cylinder, bending the staves, forcing them to bulge in the centre, and locking them in place with metal bands. All the better to store that precious drinkable content!…

The term ‘MIG’ refers to ‘metal inert gas’. MIG welding is also known as ‘gas metal arc welding’, or ‘GMAW’. The welding is done with a shielding gas which comes either from a gas bottle or from the wire itself. In the MIG welding process, there is an electrical arc process in which a continuous wire electrode is sent through a MIG welding torch via a set of motorized rollers and into a weld pool. At the same time, a shielding gas of either argon mixed with carbon dioxide (CO2) or straight CO2 can also be sent through the welding torch to create an inert cover to protect the weld pool from atmospheric contamination. The basics of MIG welding are easy to learn and you can easily be bitten by…

Over time, at occasions such as Fieldays and customer evenings, I have spoken to many owners of small MIG welding machines who are having problems, and the most common by far is with the wire feed. Wire-feed problems Common symptoms The end of the wire seems to pulse up and down. The speed and sound of the motor changes when welding. The wire slips between the feed rollers. The wire tangles into ‘birds’ nests’ in the rollers and guides. At low amps, it is hard to get a consistent arc. The wire burns back into the tip. Some ways to address these problems Liners Many of these small MIG machines come with a very soft nylon or PVC-type liner. I would recommend changing this to a steel, black Teflon, or…

• You can build your own high-performance e-bike for a lot less money than buying new. • The ideal bike has an aluminium or steel frame with a standard threaded bottom bracket. • The motor shown here will fit new or used bikes. • It’s versatile and can be refitted to another bike if needed. • It can be installed with standard hand tools and takes about four hours. • Professional fitting services are available. • A range of different motor and battery sizes are available to suit your needs and budget • Custom motor programming is available to suit you and your bike. • The bike can be ridden with throttle only. • A full parts range and repair service is available in New Zealand.…

I wanted to include handholds in the upgrade as an essential part of making the shower safer, but when I looked around the hardware shops the range of sizes was very limited and not suitable for this job. I decided to make my own, using 30mm diameter aluminium tube from my scrap bin. I turned four wall attachment flanges on the lathe, with a boss to locate the tube, a hole in the centre for a bolt to pass through, and a recess in the wall side for a nut. Then I shaped the four short horizontal tubes with one end scalloped to accommodate the vertical tube that is the handhold. The vertical tubes were 400 and 600mm long, and the whole lot bolted together. The flanges were then screwed…

In this fourth in our series on laser cutting and engraving, we explore some creative alternative uses for using lasers. Laser cutting is often used to create control panels, boxes, supports, and all those mechanical details that are faster and easier to be cut on a laser than 3D printed or — sometimes with less precision — by hand. Laser engraving can be used to convert a photograph or any other kind of image to an engraved surface in two different ways. In the first, colour images are converted to grey and the flat subjects are transformed to engraved surfaces. The intensity of the grey level of the original subject, from white (zero intensity) to black (maximum intensity), is converted to a corresponding laser intensity value from 0 to 255.…

Best of The Shed Featuring 18 of the best projects from the last 10 years, The Best of The Shed includes all of our most popular projects. With step-by-step instructions, the 176-page book will take you through a variety of projects, including a pizza oven, a trailer, a rocking horse, and a knife. How to Weld Learn how to weld with this best-selling book on the subject. Suitable for beginners through to experienced welders, this 207-page book will help you to transform ordinary steel into a blank canvas for invention. Men and their Sheds Something for everyone in this coffee table book, beautifully presented in a salute to that unique place where things are fixed and friendships formed, where invention begins and the amazing history of things is kept alive.…

We’re on the lookout for a broad range of photographs. Whether your shed’s a mess or smart-as, has sheddies working on a project or hanging out — we want to see it! You can also send in a shot of something you’ve made in your shed, and if your shed happens to be situated in a beautiful landscape, show us! Our hope is to feature a great cross-section of shed shots from around New Zealand, Australia, or anywhere in the world where a great shed exists! Enter as many shed shots as you’d like, but please ensure they’re high quality so they will reproduce well if printed. The photographers of the winning shots will feature in our 2020 calendar, included in the January/February 2020 issue and will receive a one-year…

A common fault is not checking the polarity. This leads to complaints about the running characteristics of the machine. Gas-shielded solid wires, including steel, aluminium, stainless steel, and silicon bronze, run when the machine is set to direct-current electrode positive (DCEP) — or negative earth and positive electrode. Gasless flux-cored wires run the opposite way: positive earth and negative electrode.…

Vertical up Vertical-up welding is a technique used for standing material where large, stronger welds may be required. The technique is basically the same for gas-shielded or gasless, but you will need to drop your power down. I use a weave technique. Point the wire at the toes of the weld bead and pause slightly — to obtain good penetration and to give time for the slag to rise out of the sides — then move quickly across the weld face before pausing momentarily again at the opposite side. If you dwell too long in the centre, you risk depositing too much weld metal and producing an excessively convex bead. Bad ones look like grapes hanging down. So forget the middle and focus on the sides. Pausing at the sides…

These quality conversion kits are available from Venture Scooters (venturescooters.co.nz). Venture Scooters is based just out of Matamata and imports these kits directly, so pricing is extremely competitive and all kits come with a full 12-month warranty. A complete range of spare parts is carried in stock and a full workshop repair service is available. There is a range of kits available with motors from 300W to 1000W and batteries from 10A·h to 24A·h but there is also a professional while-you-wait fitting service available from $150. Pricing starts from $1299 for the 300W 13A·h DIY kit delivered free to your door with full guidance given to help you achieve the best result. For more info call 021 111 5400.…

Using 3D printing I was able to make cover plates for the handhold wall attachments and the shower hose outlet. The shower set came with a cover plate that masked the hole in the wall where the shower hose attached. But this cover plate has to be in place before the hose fitting is screwed into the elbow. You can’t visually check that the joint is sealed after you’ve tightened it up. That appears to be standard practice in the trade. There has to be a better way! I designed and printed a two-part cover plate that I could fit after installing and checking the shower hose fitting was sealed properly. The two identical halves clip together and sit round the hose fitting. I used a similar design to make…

Before modern wheel balancing machines arrived, car wheels were balanced using a jig with a builtin level called a ‘bubble balancer’. Dennis has two of these Australian devices which he has restored. He was surprised and pleased to be able to send to Australia for the round plastic level vials to make them as good as new. To balance a wheel it is placed horizontally on the jig. The position of the bubble in the vial determines where wheel weights are fastened to the rim to counteract imbalances in the rim and tyre so that the wheel spins without vibration.…

I have started brewing beer again. I know that’s not unusual and many of us do it. What has struck me from my past experience is how much better the modern brews are. In the past when I brewed you had very little choice — it was Coopers, or Coopers. Of course, I was at the time living in the West Island. While Coopers made a very fine beer and even its homebrewed version was okay, it did leave me wondering what else there could be. It wasn’t until the recent explosion in craft brewing that more choices finally became available and we could all break free from the awful stranglehold of the two big brewers here with their over-sweetened, bland offerings. The things I have to do In another…