Innehållsförteckning för No 98 September - October 2021 från The Shed

The stresses and strains of daily life are many, of that we can all be very certain. Throw into that daily life what we are all going through nowadays, with Covid, flooding, fires, and storms, and you certainly could be forgiven for feeling some anxiety and depression. Some friends have commented to me that they are going stir-crazy not being able to travel safely these days. In the scheme of things, that stress is probably way down the list of what to feel anxious about but, nevertheless, it’s a worry for some and therefore valid. There will be many Shed readers who had been planning some years of regularly travelling or cruising and that is on the back-burner till who knows when. In fact, one of our Shed team members…

The Men’s Sheds movement started in Australia in 1998 in Tongala, Victoria, and in Lane Cove, New South Wales, as a consequence of concern about the health of men — and particularly of retired men. There are now just over 1000 in Australia and more in other countries. The Australian Men’s Shed Association was established in 2007 with the overall aim of improving men’s health. It receives funding from the federal government. One shed that I visited in Tasmania had been given A$50K by the association for start-up costs. In New Zealand the concept has proved equally popular, although the association here receives no government funding, but is generously supported by sponsors and local communities. St Martins Community Menzshed The 154th New Zealand Men’s Shed was opened at the beginning…

Every week we upload new content onto The Shed website to add to the hundreds of articles and videos already on the site for readers to discover, learn from, and enjoy. The uploads of the past few months include:…

Toggle clamps When it comes to clamping, lever-action toggle clamps offer excellent power from a quick and easy motion and they are simple to install for ready access. Toggle clamps have a multitude of uses in engineering, metal fabrication, and woodworking. Hi-Q Components stocks a wide range of highquality Turkish-made Kukamet toggle clamps, including horizontal and vertical actions, latching or push–pull configurations with different mounting options, and even pneumatic versions. See the Hi-Q Components website or for more information, email sales@hiq.co.nz or call 0800 800 293. 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…

Nice when you can share your favourite place with your favourite partner Was I ever hoisted with my own petard! Those seats (see The Shed Issue No. 97) set my partner thinking about what they surrounded — which was a brazier made from an old washing-machine drum. It had burned out, and the replacement idea, an old log burner, hadn’t really worked. So, with winter approaching, we went together to Rietveld’s, the second-hand machinery place I’ve written about before in The Shed, looking for something we could turn into a brazier. Nice when you can share your favourite place with your favourite partner. The fun begins All we were looking for was a simple, robust fire tub, but what we found opened up a ton of fun. We think it…

We are all bloody geniuses. The T-shirt read: “Restoring is boring”. In recent times I have found that having a project of any calibre can be very therapeutic. Offering up my oily little two-stroke Indian to the gods of speed could be interpreted as potentially mad, overzealous, even deranged, but restoring the little machine makes me do other portions of my simple life with more determination and ingenuity. I recall the night I was first introduced to the little ‘Injun’ — affectionately renamed by my mates. Several years ago, while my wife slept peacefully, blissfully unaware, Trade Me flirted and then enticed me to push the Buy Now button on a 1974 ME 125cc Indian trail bike. A dream comes true In the morning, I proudly announced that I had…

There’s a famous Zen Buddhist meditation called ‘the sound of one hand clapping’. Such a saying is known as a ‘koan’, a sort of nonsense phrase that monks use for mind training in their search for enlightenment. I’m no monk, but I was facing another nonsense phrase — ‘the sound of a onehanded jar opener’ — which had nothing to do with enlightenment. Rather, it was cries of frustration from my wife with a newly broken wrist trying to open a jar with one hand. We were quickly learning that you just can’t do that. Try opening your favourite jam, or beer in a screw-top bottle — it’s just not possible with one hand. For small items like pill bottles, you can use your mouth to gain leverage, but not…

With a CV that ranges from stuntman and stock car driver to pyrotechnician, Jody Hooker has had more than his fair share of tumbles. Add big-wave surfer, steel worker, rally circuit crewman, creator, and rider of off-the-wall motorcycles to the inventory and you get the picture — this is someone who fully embraces his wild streak. Surfing, Jody says, was where he learned to conquer his fear: “Out on a big wave, if you hesitate you’re stuffed. You can’t wait for later; you have to do it now.” A business begins These days, Jody channels that fearless spirit into custom-building dream rides for bikers who like to express themselves. The first bike he made for himself was cobbled together from whatever he could find in his shed. He hand built…

A paint job done well is very satisfying. To help you get your paint job done right first time every time, we’ve asked the Resene experts to share some of their top tips: Always plan the order of painting, top down When you’re planning to paint, start from the top and work down – ceiling first, then walls then floor. That way if you do have a paint spill you won’t be damaging work you have already finished. When it comes to hanging a Resene wallpaper, paint the ceiling and trims first, then hang your wallpaper so you don’t risk fresh paint being dripped onto your new wallpaper. You need to check a colour is right. How do you do it? Paint the wall, right? Wrong! Painting the wall means…

Recently, the Menzshed in Halswell, Christchurch, purchased a new bandsaw. The saw worked well, but had one alarming feature. When it was turned off, the blade continued running for approximately 20 seconds. During this time it was almost silent, and that was seen as a real danger to both the operator and anybody else nearby. The motor on the saw was a 2hp singlephase AC induction motor (Image 1). Single-phase induction motors generally have one or more starting capacitors — these are the tubular objects mounted on the motor. There was clearly a need to bring the motor to a halt quickly. All sorts of electrically and mechanically operated brakes were considered, and just as quickly rejected. A quick internet search found a method of braking called ‘DC injection’ (Image…

We can use drills and reamers to make holes but a boring bar allows us to make a hole any size we want. We are not confined to a standard drill size. The lathe was invented to produce perfectly round objects, and we think in terms of cylindrical objects such as shafts or axles. However, the other side of the coin is making perfectly round holes for the axles to run in. This is where being able to bore holes comes into play. A boring bar is held in the tool post in a similar way to turning and facing tools. A hole in a cylinder is roughed out first using a drill, leaving enough material under the finished size. This ensures that finishing by using a boring bar will…

Every now and then I embark on a project that seems straightforward at the outset but I soon find myself revising, modifying, and adapting various aspects of it before it is completed. Making an acrylic bender proved to be a prime example. It was also a salutary lesson to take on projects featured on YouTube with a grain of salt. Acrylic, or Perspex, is one of those materials that lends itself to a host of small projects. However, it is a material that can be finicky to work with, difficult to glue, reluctant to bend, and prone to sudden and unexpected failure if pressure is applied to it incorrectly. On the other hand, it is non conductive, can be transparent or coloured, and can be bent into all sorts of…

The chance finding of a news clip on TechTV led recently to a ride in an autonomous vehicle in a church car park in Auckland’s Pakuranga. In the clip, entitled A NZ Mobility Innovation That Will Change the World, Mohammed Hikmet, executive chairman of HMI Technologies Ltd and president of Intelligent Transport Systems New Zealand from 2015 to 2017, was describing the data-driven ecosystem that he and his team at Ohmio Automotion Ltd have developed alongside their vehicle. Winner of the New Zealand Trade and Enterprises–sponsored 2018 TIN Rocket Award as a technology exporter, HMI gathers real-time data from its network of road signs throughout New Zealand and Australia — through which its vehicle moves — and uses the data collected to create the ecosystem. Direction is not set Styled…

The plans pictured here show the geometry and sizes that work well. To make more than one or two, it’s best make some jigs to ensure that your work is efficient and reproducible. All my jigs were made from workshop scraps, so they may not look flash but they work well. This brief description of the process is best read with reference to the plans and photos supplied. Makers are welcome to modify the design to improve production or use. Lever and block The lever is formed from 45x45mm pine clears. My Jig No. 1 holds the timber firmly (drive in a wedge where marked) and guides my Skilsaw to the exact cut required for the tapering handle. Each cut creates two levers using about a 62.5cm length of timber.…

Jody says: “Go for it. Do your homework. Ask questions and talk to the certification guys about what you want to do. The guidelines are continually changing, and they will tell you what is going on. There are a lot of books on how to build a chopper but they are mostly American. In the US, they don’t have Warrant of Fitness and certifications like we do. We have to jump through a lot of hoops to get bikes legal. But don’t be afraid of that, because the guidelines are there for us to stay safe.”…

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RVs and smaller motorhomes are iconic examples of a fascinating lifestyle, whether you use them for holidays or — like me — for working while moving around to visit new places. Brand-new vehicles of these types offer the latest technological advances and many of the improvements are easier than you would imagine, but if you ask for some of them from your dealer — if he can provide them—your mobile-home cost increases considerably. Frequently, these features are part of some kind of personalisation available only on high-range, expensive models: smart sensors, high-quality sound distribution, artificial vision systems, hidden silent alarms, and more. Making your own improvements In this new series of articles in The Shed, I will introduce projects aimed at improving the comfort of a commercially built camper van…

Quite a few years ago, the Arduino was the go-to microcontroller. It was cheap, versatile, and easy to program. Fast forward to today and the ESP8266 and ESP32 are the new go-to microcontrollers. Arduino set a new standard with its open-source hardware and software, along with the range of shields (addon boards), but they lacked on-board wireless and Bluetooth. Yes, some boards had it, or you could add it, but the costs escalated and the size increased with each extra module. ESP8266 ended that problem with built-in wireless and Bluetooth. The ESP devices generally have less GPIO (general purpose input output) but, on the plus side, they cost only a few dollars. Programming was solved with inclusion into the Arduino IDE, and Expressif (www.espressif.com) has been providing all the supporting…

Visit www.menzshed.nz or email: secretary@menzshed.nz AUCKLAND AUCKLAND CENTRAL COMMUNITY SHED Nikki 027 375 9662 aucklandcentralshed@gmail.com MENS SHED AUCKLAND EAST Terry Moore 021 0829 0970 mensshedaucklandeast@gmail.com DEVONPORT CLAY STORE COMMUNITY Workshop Tom Murray 09 445 8786 tomandlily@xtra.co.nz HIBISCUS MENS SHED TRUST Maurice Browning 021 799414 hibiscusshed@outlook.com HOWICK COMMUNITY MENZSHED INC Andrew Harvey 021 808 815 secretary@howickmenzshed.nz MANUREWA BOOMER BUSINESS Anita Curlett 09 269 4080 or 021 507 361 anita.curlett@mbct.org.nz MASSEY COMMUNITY MEN’S SHED Andrew Wilson 027 516 6415 masseyshednz@gmail.com MEN’S SHED NORTH SHORE Larry Klassen 09 442 2145 or 021 311 036 admin@mensshednorthshore.org.nz WAIHEKE COMMUNITY SHED John Meeuwsen 021 2424925 john.meeuwsen39@gmail.com WAIUKU AND DISTRICT COMMUNITY WORKSHOP Derek Robbins 021 677 474 dekernz@gmail.com BAY OF PLENTY MENZSHED KATIKATI Ron Boggiss 07 549 0500 or 027 495 2136 rboggiss@kinect.co.nz KAWERAU COMMUNITY MENZ SHED…