Innehållsförteckning för No 93 November-December 2020 från The Shed

Perhaps there is something you’ve always had a hankering to do but the cost of retraining or full-time study was too high, or perhaps you know school leavers or someone who needs to find a new career as a result of Covid impacts — if so, then read on. For anyone waiting for the right moment to commit to a new future, this is that moment! In July, the government announced a training initiative making technical training courses free, to support New Zealand’s recovery from the impacts of Covid-19. Several primary and secondary industries are short of qualified new entrants and, as Covid-19 is also causing many people to reassess their careers, the Targeted Training and Apprenticeships Fund (TTAF), developed in association with industry and training organizations, has been designed…

Cut a straight edge with a ruler and craft knife. Use a slitting tool to produce the belt blank, using the cut edge as a guide. Thin a short length of one end of the blank by pulling that end through the leather splitting machine. Groove two sections of the thinned edge on both sides with the edge-creaser, a few millimetres from the edge. Stamp the grooved sections progressively with an appropriate pricking iron to provide a guide to the stitching. Use a die to make an oblong hole for the tongue of the buckle. Fit the buckle and, using a length of waxed polyester thread and two needles, saddle-stitch the two sides of the buckle end of the belt. Cut the tongue of the belt using a suitably shaped…

A lathe is a machine for producing round shafts. It has been an essential tool since the wheel was first thought of. The lathe was one of the first machine tools invented and dates back to 1300BC when Egyptians used a two-man lathe. Just as important as its function to produce round shafts is its ability to create concentric diameters and to make possible ends that are square to the axis. Then, when early engineers needed screw threads, they discovered that the lathe was able to make those, too. As time has gone by, lathes have become more accurate, easier to use, and more versatile. But the basics of being able to produce concentric and square surfaces remain their most important role. In this first article of a series I…

As sheddies many of us have to grapple with a common problem. For one reason or another the selection of tools at our disposal often falls just short of what we require to undertake our projects. Few of us are fortunate enough to be able to buy every tool we need, or the one would make the project just that bit easier. It’s often hard to justify buying a specific tool that may be used only every now and then, or to allocate space for it in your cramped shed. If you are like me you will no doubt range back and forth between metal and wood projects, not to mention leather, plastic, and other materials, so the list of ‘required’ tools can burgeon quickly. Therefore, it pays to look…

“He’s passionate and talented with an enormous skill base” Much as even the most accomplished sheddie might like to think otherwise, there is no way to emulate Rod Tempero’s success in building replicas of fabulous mid-20th-century European-style sports racing cars. Anyone who had the networks and upfront cash to find and afford the components, and the skills, tools, staff, time, and perfectionism required, would still lack that certain je ne sais quoi. Call it ‘genius’ — John Reitveld does. A long-time friend and client, orthopaedic surgeon John Rietveld puts Rod in the same class as the Kiwi motorbike/jetboat mavens John Britten and Bill Hamilton. “He’s passionate and talented with an enormous skill base that isn’t really appreciated. He’s very clever but he’s also very humble. I don’t think he recognizes…

The past two months’ uploads include:…

When I started brewing many years ago, I spent many hours washing and sanitizing bottles each time I bottled a brew. I’d bottle in my recycled crate glass bottles and keep them inside for a couple of days to keep warm while they gassed up before moving them into our garage for storage. It was not uncommon to have 10- or 12-dozen crates stacked up in the garage at any one time. Oh, how things have changed. Like many other brewers, I have now retired the bottles and my home-brewed beer is kegged and served on a kegerator. I can pour a draught beer from my bar taps, just as happens at your local pub. I’m not saying kegging is better for home brewers — far from it. Both have…

‘Tanning’ is the process that converts the skins of animals into leather. It has been used by humans for millennia, starting in Pakistan 9000 years ago. In our part of the world it is mainly cattle and sheep that provide the skins, which are called ‘hides’ when they are removed from the slaughtered beasts as a by-product of meat production. Leather has the advantage over unprocessed hides of durability. Like any dead organism, bacteria cause untanned hides to decompose rapidly. In contrast, some leathers last for generations. For bacteria to decompose the hide’s protein molecules, water must be available. The vegetable-tanning process removes water and fat and coats the proteins, making them resistant to the bacteria’s digestive enzymes. It also makes the leather more flexible. Vegetable tanning uses natural tannins,…

One of the tools I bought in Japan — see The Shed, Issue No. 89 — was a hand-forged marking knife. I use it, or a Stanley replaceable-blade pocket knife, when I want to increase my chances of accurately sawing or chiselling when making something in wood. Like any sharp knife it has the potential to cause grievous harm, so I needed a sheath to keep its edge covered. For most marking out I use a carpenter’s pencil, which, before I wore glasses, I used to keep behind my ear. For a while after that I used my back pocket and succeeded in breaking lots of pencils. I asked Yağmur to make me a combination sheath, to be worn on my belt, for both carpenter’s pencil and marking knife. This…

Eye protection is very important as bits of swarf (metal turnings) fly off the cutting tool. Always avoid the area at the side of the chuck when the lathe is running as anything that may come adrift would be flung into this ‘rotating zone’. Ensure that the emergency stop button is within easy reach — many floor-standing lathes also have a foot-operated stop bar. Do not wear loose clothing or jewellery that could become caught in the rotating parts such as the chuck, feed shaft, or lead screw. Gloves are a hazard too, as they can be grabbed by rotating parts and your hand can be snagged along with them. The time to use gloves is when you need to handle swarf. This by-product of metal turning can look curious…

This is a collection of anecdotes, suggestions, and ideas for make-do and useful tools to meet the needs of sheddies like us. I would like to encourage other readers to submit their own little tool tips so we can all benefit from each other’s ingenuity in the pursuit of our favourite pastime. Send your contributions to: editor@theshedmag.co.nz. Repurpose a broken tungsten carbide lathe bit Oxy weld a short length of 5–6mm rod onto the tungsten bit, put some bright heat shrink on the rod to make it easily visible, and you have a very good and permanently sharp marker for your steel projects. What use a broken piece of glass? A small section of broken glass, either curved or straight, makes an ideal scraper to shape, reduce, and clean up…

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. Professional Sheet Metal Fabrication The most detailed sheet-metal book available, this 304-page paperback includes clear instructions on a variety of subjects — including directions for using pneumatic hammers, an English wheel, and more. Learn how to form door seams and…

The Tempero name is possibly Portuguese but the family can trace its antecedents back to 1660 in England. Rod’s father Errol is a second-generation coachbuilder. One of Errol’s grandfathers was a wheelwright; the other a blacksmith. Alan Tempero, Errol’s father, was a coach motor-body builder who learnt his trade in Oamaru and Timaru before World War I. Errol was apprenticed to him in 1952 and took over the business in 1970 at the end of the metal-body era when fibreglass was being introduced. “Terrible stuff,” says Errol. “We had been building ambulances and buses and were looking for something to use our skills in the trade. I had five or six staff at the time and in the late 1970s Rod came into the business as an apprentice.” Rod wanted…

A registered charitable trust, which describes its raison d’être as “We strive to make the act of reimagining the world joyful, tangible, and infectious”, Gap Filler has received international recognition along with a number of high-profile awards. Founder Coralie Winn was a finalist for NEXT Woman of the Year (Arts) in 2013, and received the Queen’s Service Medal for Service to the Arts in 2015. Co-founder Ryan Reynolds was a New Zealander of the Year nominee, Sanitarium New Zealand Innovator of the Year, in 2019. The range of projects is inspiring, from a Dance-O-Mat and Cycle-Powered Cinema to the Think Differently Book Exchange, in which old refrigerators are used as libraries for anyone who wishes to take, leave, or exchange books. The Pallet Pavilion was a finalist in the International…

Bang-for-buck CAD programme The new Alibre Design version 22 provides all the tools you need to design, validate, document, market, and manufacture in an engineering design platform. Whether you are designing tooling, toys, or heavy industrial plant, precise manufacturing drawings and assembly instructions are just a few clicks away. Alibre Design’s toolset has been developed and refined over 20 years to power a broad range of applications. New licences start from $337 for Atom3D, $1607 for Professional, and $3091 for Expert. For more information, see baycad.biz, email enquiries@baycad.biz, or call 027 484 7464. Polish query Autosolved If you haven’t heard of Autosol, you can thank us later. This revolutionary, ammonia-free product is the go-to cleaner and polish for uncoated aluminium surfaces. It leaves a clean sheen without scratching or hazing.…

In tanning, the splitting of the hide to achieve the required thickness is called ‘skiving’. The top layer is the ‘leather’, the lower layer, called a ‘split’, can be made into suede or rough garments like welder’s aprons and gardening gloves. The person doing the skiving was called a ‘skiver’. Today, a skiver is almost universally understood to be a person who avoids work or responsibility. It isn’t a term with a positive connotation. Another job name, ‘bodger’, is also a term of abuse today. A bodger is generally understood to be someone who does an unskilled repair, particularly on a car. So, a rough repair is a ‘bodge’. Originally a bodger was a craftsman who produced turned parts for chairs, such as legs, from unseasoned wood in the forest.…

His dad sold stuff to my dad. He sold — and still sells — stuff to me. His son has sold stuff to mine. The yard has been where it is, chiselled into a Dunedin hillside below our old family home, for as long as I can remember. I sometimes go there on a mission, looking for a specific item. More often though, these days, I go there looking for inspiration; what could I make using this or that? Where else can you buy nuts and bolts by the kilo? Or a Victorian sawbench or an MRI scanner or the engine from a fishing boat? Rietveld’s — W Rietveld Ltd to give it its full name — is one of those constants I hope we never lose. Where else could…

• Black and white, 116 pages, soft cover • Self-published by the author; available from the author’s website — www.wrytings.com; $25 plus postage When The Shed magazine editor sent me a copy of this book and asked if I would review it for the magazine, my initial thought was that it would be great to read a New Zealand perspective on the technicalities of woodturning. I was not disappointed with the book, although it was not what I had expected. It was certainly ‘up my alley’ in being aimed at motivating people — the over 60s in my case — to get off the couch and achieve the satisfaction of developing new skills by making something. The author makes it clear from the start that the book is not a…

I have been repairing a fertilizer spreader for a mate for some time now — good things take time. After much procrastination — if that was a sport, I could represent New Zealand — I was preparing to tackle cutting a circle from some stainless sheet I had for the base of the spreader. The old one had been completely destroyed by urea, which had been left in the hopper for over a year. Urea — indeed, most of the material you put in a spreader — does steel no favours. As a result, it has been a long process. The disassembly took ages, as the shafts had rust welded themselves to the pipes attached to them. However, with everything disassembled, the gearbox cleaned, and a new set of seals…