Innehållsförteckning för No 91 July-August 2020 från The Shed

There won’t be many of us who missed the recent announcement about consent no longer being required for new minor dwellings up to 30m2 in size — consent exemptions for low risk work / new building. The chatter everywhere was about sleep-outs, outdoor fires, carports, and the like, and of course my thinking went straight to — a 30m2 shed! I am sure many of you will recall a time when you could build your own house, shed, garage, etc. and it was no big deal. However times change — probably for the better. Structures need to be safe and sound, of course, so rules are there for a reason — basically to keep us safe and sound and not cause issues for anyone else. This new building consent also…

‘Plasma’ is a state of matter whereby gas or a mixture of gases is heated to an extremely high temperature and ionized to become electrically conductive. In plasma cutting, compressed air is the main source of supply with nitrogen the gas used for commercial or heavy industrial uses. The electrically conductive arc is forced through a small, constricting orifice / plasma tip to create a highvelocity jet of ionized gas. The parent metal or workpiece is then melted away by the heat of this clean, controlled arc. To put it into perspective, lightning is probably one of the most recognized forms of plasma. The lightning is looking for an earth in the same way that the plasma machine looks for the earthed workpiece. The intense heat of the plasma arc…

What we will build A secure door lock controlled by a web browser A doorbell that can call the homeowner’s smartphone if the homeowner is not present A two-way-secured password system to open the home’s door with a pin and one-time-password (OTP) An electronic key to open the door with a credit card-sized BBC micro: bit An advanced heating control takes into account the temperature of every room A secure gas kitchen valve that makes it almost impossible to leave the gas on or the flame burning when not cooking An efficient dog water dispenser A lighting control A garden watering system linked to the weather report What we will use Each project is based on platforms that are easy to develop and manage: Arduino Uno, Mega, and Nano ESP8266…

Dr Susan Krumdieck is a professor of engineering at the University of Canterbury. She has spent a working lifetime contemplating energy, resources, and social constructs from an engineering point of view. Transition Engineering is aimed at her students, but is digestible by anyone with an engineering bent. It is the cleanest expression of the problems facing humanity, from a practical perspective, that I have ever read. The concept is simple. She starts with how we will be in 2100 — no fossil energy, lower population, little or no mining, massive recycling — and asks how we get from here to there. More specifically, how we engineer our way from here to there. She addresses mega-problems and ‘wicked problems’ without shying away, an approach that has seen her become a founding…

Except for walking, biking, and, belatedly, fishing, most recreational activities in New Zealand were banned during the mandatory Level 4 lockdown. Sport aviation was no exception. Throughout the country, light aircraft were grounded, parked-up in hangars and airfields. Even more than most training institutions, flying schools must be concerned about the future. The news that Air New Zealand is to make 400 pilots redundant would be very discouraging to anyone thinking of making flying a career, so the number of students seeking pilot training is bound to fall. Ivan says that the ban on flying was because of the danger of transmitting the Covid-19 virus in a rescue situation. In the aftermath of an accident, the rescue crews would inevitably have to be close to a flyer with an injury,…

“Lots of the stuff that people bring to me is crap but I can usually find a use for it,” Andrew muses. “I sort it into categories.” If there’s nothing he can create from it, it’s moved on. However, there are sometimes treasures amongst the dross. “Someone recently brought me a cool, old, silver ladle. Then I picked up some solid silver napkin rings from the tip shop. I even once found a gold sovereign in the inorganic and a gold and silver Aztec disc, a calendar — I swapped that for a huge load of scrap metal and made good dollars on it.”…

MISSING DETAILS The belt sander article in Issue No. 90 (May/June 2020) leaves out a couple of small details. Ken Buckley Great questions, Ken — I should have thought to include that info. Nigel Young DARN THAT VIRUS I was rather excited to see Bryan’s article on fresh hop beers in this latest issue of The Shed. As a lover of fine ales and a sometimes brewer, I was rather disappointed when the coronavirus (understandably) put the kibosh on the Fresh Hop festival in Auckland. It is a highlight of the events calendar for me and a nice way to see out the summer. Even though the publication came out too late for this year’s hops, I shall endeavour to get my hands on some of that Nelson Sauvin through…

THE SECOND ARTICLE, TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE ISSUE 92 OF THE SHED, WILL FEATURE THE INTERIOR OF THE TINY HOUSE, THE EXTERIOR JOINERY AND THE COPPER WORK, WHICH WERE CARRIED OUT USING SOME TRADITIONAL METHODS AND MACHINERY Architect Elinor McDouall’s vision to transform a 1920s Otago Harbour Board workboat into a tiny house caught the imagination and tested the skills of all the tradesmen who brought it to fruition. Not your typical wedding cake structure, Elinor’s design turned the Iona on its side and the hull, podlike, now forms the backbone of a unique little bed and breakfast on the Whanganui River, opposite the city’s historic central business district. Following the curve Boats are mainly curved, unlike your standard house or commercial building. Elinor wanted to retain the boat…

Chris Cooper can trace his fascination with steam to his grandfather, who was a boiler inspector on the railways at Taumarunui. Born and raised in Hamilton, Chris remembers school holidays spent around the marshalling yards and workshops of that historic central North Island town. One day he bribed the driver of a shunting loco with a bunch of grapes and so gained his first ride in the cab of a steam loco. Chris went on to become interested in model steam locomotives. He joined Hamilton Model Engineers Inc. in the days when it had its facilities at Seddon Park and built his first model steam engine. The steam adventure begins Also a member of the club was John Hannah, chief engineer at the Waitoa Dairy Factory. John ran a steam…

Recently, as the price of 3D printers started to fall, I took the plunge and bought a Creality Ender 3 printer. As those of you who have also taken the plunge will know, once you have the bug, the add-ons, upgrades, etc. soon follow. One upgrade I thought would be good to have is a method by which the printer will shut itself off. This enables you to make long prints that finish at some ungodly hour without the worry of the printer idling away until you can get back to turn it off. The mandatory internet search came up with an Arduino-controlled motion sensor that would detect when the printer stopped moving the extruder head and the heated bed, indicating that the printer job was finished. A return to…

Donk’ is Australian and New Zealand slang for an engine, although it does have other meanings, ‘drunk’ or ‘wet’ being two. The word is probably an abbreviation for ‘donkey engine’. These were the ancillary engines on sailing ships that replaced large gangs of sailors in weighing anchor or hoisting a large sail using a capstan, thus allowing a much smaller crew to operate the vessel. Big donks on the plains The accepted theory is that deep within the Earth there are thermal currents that push bits of Earth’s outermost layer, the crust, around. In our part of the planet, the sea floor is pushed upwards by these movements, resulting in earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountains such as the South Island’s Southern Alps. These run pretty much north to south, forming the…

A visit to Andrew Hall’s shed — a single garage in suburban Henderson, West Auckland — is a portal into another dimension. In this realm, a sense of humour is essential. First, we must pass along a fence line fringed with upside-down vintage hand saws that wave in the breeze. The palings of the fence are festooned with disfigured Barbie dolls, rusting twisted metal, and strange totemic faces. Moving on, we pass an undergrowth of salvaged steel watched over by a larger-thanlife metal humanoid, whose gas cylinder belly has been converted into a brazier. Having navigated this tangled wasteland, we drop under a shade sail, to enter a highly ordered, tightly packed, and dimly lit Tardis of tools. Here you are greeted by an angular assembly of buckled and bent…

The previous owner sent Elinor some historical information after she had bought the boat, which was at the time afloat at Whangateau. Iona was built by Miller and Tunnage and launched as “Mona” in 1924. The boat fished out of Akaroa and later Moeraki. Otago Harbour Board (OHB) bought her in 1941 and she was used as a lines boat and for servicing the lights on the harbour. The Iona was sold privately in 1978 and went fishing again. After an accident on the Taieri River entrance, she was put into Miller and Tunnage for extensive work involving stem, frames and planking. She was then stored for some years. The owner had planned to rebuild Iona into the original workboat configuration with two masts and aft wheelhouse but ran out…

Scheme of the Smart Home Global Project: every home area is controlled — and that includes feedback — through a node. The home nodes are connected through the local Wi-Fi to the control centre, based on a Raspberry Pi 4B, and are able to complete the following tasks: In this issue of The Shed, I am introducing a series aimed at making our living spaces better and more comfortable. The projects in the “Smart Home and Internet of Things (IoT) applications” series will include some of the great home automation upgrades that are now available. These projects will involve not just electronics and software but also electromechanics, mechanics, 3D printing, and other sheddie skills such as woodworking. I get a lot of enjoyment from undertaking…

An off-grid lifestyle tends to be somewhat insulated from outside change, so we approached the Covid-19 lockdown with little trepidation; we even hosted five extra people — we’re usually two. A to-do list was pinned on the wall, and life changed gear just a little. We built a glasshouse — number four, or thereabouts — out of some old ranchsliders and did some running repairs. We pulled out the Thermettes to save on firewood and gas, and had a fastest-to-boil competition while we used them — Jennie won with 7min 17s. Turns out combustion is better if you start dry and add the water later. Heading into the southern winter, we added our old 200W of solar to our visitors’ bus-top-mounted 1100W so they could continue homeschooling, and mounted and…

The original Supermarine Spitfire was powered by the 27-litre, water and glycolcooled, Rolls-Royce Merlin 60o V-12 48 valve engine designed by Cyril Lovesey (1899–1976), among others. In the early 1930s Rolls-Royce decided that it needed to make a larger, more powerful aircraft engine, leading to the design of the Merlin in 1933. Production started in 1936 and ended in the 1950s. It wasn’t the most powerful aircraft engine of WWII, but it is widely regarded as the best. It was the engine that powered the North American P52 Mustangs as well as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighters that defeated the German Luftwaffe in 1940s Battle of Britain. More than 150,000 Merlins were manufactured by Rolls-Royce and Ford in Britain, and by Packard in the US. Lovesey was in…

Andrew was saddened when his artistically modified Skoda was written off the road by the police, saying it created humour on the road. “It was a perfectly good car — a mechanic checked it out for me. It had good brakes, good tyres, good steering, no rust, and a warrant but it just had weird stuff like a rubber plunger coming out of the roof rack. It was all flexible. The cops asked what it was and I said it was an atmospheric disruptor. They couldn’t process that and said it was a dangerous protrusion. They didn’t like the indicators made out of plastic egg cups or my Batman bomb in the back, either. I miss that car; it made people laugh but the cops didn’t understand — it was…