Innehållsförteckning för No 104 September - October 2022 från The Shed

Human nature is a funny thing, isn’t it? We all have our own quirks and fancies. When Shed writer Jason Burgess contacted me and said that he had stumbled across a couple of blokes who restore and collect stationary engines, and would I be keen on an article on them, I could hardly contain myself. Would I? Would I? You bet your bottom dollar I would be. He was rather taken aback with my enthusiasm for the subject and wondered whether I was having a funny turn. The thing is: I can still recall the moment about 30 years ago when I first fell under the spell of these beasties. It was my first visit to the McLeans Island Swap Meet in Christchurch and I was wandering around — as…

Right, so now that you’re back from your warm, sunny Pacific Island holiday — taken to recover from making the benchtop and frame (The Shed May/June, Issue 103) — it’s time to get working on the vice. What we have on our hands is a beautiful little project of reasonable complexity that demands accuracy, uses both hand and machine skills, and is incredibly satisfying in both the making and the using. Accurate The concept behind the vice is a parallel box made up of four components that is driven along a series of guides and matching tongues and grooves by a single screw. In order for the vice to function effectively, all stages of the construction must accurately keep the unit square and parallel. Familiarise yourself with the drawings in…

In this second episode (see The Shed Issue No. 103 for part one), Ray faces challenges as he searches for his son. An intelligent drone impersonates the dominating technology he meets. I think that any maker at least once in his life would spend some time thinking about doing some hacking on this fascinating world. The second part of this project, presented here, will inspire all those makers fascinated by these futuristic flying objects. Indeed, I am one of them. If you plan to make your own project inspired by the Ray adventures, don’t forget to explore the Tales for Makers challenge running until the end of August on element14 (https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/tales4makers). Is it Tommy playing video games? Excited, he enters the room but he finds it empty Drone patrol Ray…

Reg Horner is one of life’s great enthusiasts and one of his passions is cars, of several different vintages. He has a 2007 Mustang and a 1976 Lincoln Continental but the most intriguing are a couple of Marmons. Yes, that’s right, Marmons. It’s not a brand known to many, but Marmon made substantial cars — along the lines of Packards — right through until 1933. The marque was established in 1902 and a six-cylinder Marmon won the first Indy 500 race in 1911. There are a couple of Marmons in Dunedin and another in Whangamata but Reg owns three — two runners and one awaiting restoration. “I’m trying to corner the market,” he says. The cars Reg owns have straight-eight engines but Marmon also produced a V16-engined model. It was…

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There is something endearing, almost comical, about the chugging, spinning, and belching machinations of vintage stationary engines. These early exemplars of internal combustion technology sit like naked towers of component parts jutting incongruously from oversized flywheels; everything in plain sight. Sometimes fuel tanks, exhausts, filters, and pumps look as if they have been bolted on as an afterthought. While function definitely trumps aesthetics, design wise their rounded lines still have a charm of their own. Far from being relics, in the right hands these low-tech workhorses can still provide reliable and economical power sources for all manner of tasks. There is a global fraternity of enthusiasts devoted to collecting and restoring them for future generations; these fans of forgotten machinery are said to be infected with the ‘old iron disease’.…

Rather than looking at what’s new this month, we have decided to take a little look back. Scanning the internet the other day we came across various lists of the best new woodworking tools. There are lots of ‘top 10’ lists on the internet for the best woodworking tools of this year, and previous years. Quite a number focused on power tools but we wanted to be a bit more inclusive in a list of our own. We wanted to consider the innovations, the tools that have changed the way woodworkers work — the innovations that most people would recognise as new during the span of their woodworking careers. Here’s our fairly random selection of 10 innovations over the past few decades. We’d like to hear your views. What would…

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 high-quality 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 09 415 333. No more gaps All those annoying little gaps in kitchens and bathrooms that can be a host for nasties like mould and water build-up can be dealt to easily with Selleys No More Gaps Bathroom & Kitchen. Cracks and gaps will be hidden for…

Today’s bronze typically consists of approximately 88 per cent copper, 10 per cent tin, and 2 per cent zinc. The earliest bronze objects contained around 2 per cent or less of tin or arsenic, it is thought due to trace metal content in the copper ore. Then humans discovered that adding tin or arsenic to copper increased its hardness and made casting much easier. David finds many sources of bronze in second-hand shops and foundries, so unlike our ancestors, he rarely makes his own. Bronze age humans must have discovered through experimentation that metal could be extracted from ore. Malachite, for example — a green rock from which copper is extracted — is found in places such as the Congo, Gabon, Zambia, Namibia, Mexico, and Australia. The largest deposit —…

A long time ago, watching flames licking up the outside of their cauldron, someone must have wondered if it would be more efficient to have those flames go up the centre. It’s easy to see why they’d think like that: no chainsaws, no log splitters, every stick obtained by hand, and the next tree always one tree further away — you’d want it all to count. Thus samovars and, later, Kelly Kettles, Thermettes, wetbacks, and califonts; it has been a long tradition. Hereabouts, we’ve been heading in the wood-fired outdoor-cooking direction for a while (see The Shed Issue No. 98, page 52) and a pair of Thermettes have played their part; a traditional one and a stainless tank of a thing — which I hid while we went away sailing,…

I can see that you have your hand up already with the first question. “Why do I need to learn this?” I suppose that you don’t need to learn this stuff, but it is so much fun — why wouldn’t you want to learn how to do it? In today’s environment, where digitally controlled equipment is now common, businesses that provide services such as cutting, folding, and machining are receiving digital drawings rather than the printed drawings that were still the norm until a couple of years ago. If you need to make a metal bracket, for example, it is quite cost effective to have it either laser or plasma-cut then folded by a supplier with computer numeric controlled (CNC) equipment, even if you only want a one-off. It will…

When it comes to painting, there are some easy ways you can save time to get your quality paint-finish faster. So, to help you get your paint job done right the first time every time, we’ve asked the Resene experts to share some of their top tips … Tap don’t wipe When you’re painting with a brush, dip the bristles around one-third of the way into the paint, then tap, don’t wipe, the brush on the side of the can. Tapping the brush will help stop your paint dripping as you move the brush to the wall. Wiping the brush means you’ll end up with a lot of paint back in the can and less on your walls. Be a smooth finisher When you’re brushing around window sills, trim and…

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The Thermette was patented by Auckland electrical engineer John Hart in 1929 and first sold in 1931. When World War II broke out, the New Zealand Army asked him to waive the patent. He agreed, and the device became known to soldiers as the ‘Benghazi boiler’. Others quickly learned that the burnt circles meant that the Kiwis had been there. Thermettes are similar to ‘volcano kettles’, made by Irish gypsy tinsmiths since the mid 19th century. According to Wikipedia: “There was a meeting between one of the [Irish] Marris family and a New Zealander (almost certainly John Ashley Hart …) to discuss products and ideas. The original concept of the volcano kettle appears to have been Harts [sic] … The first Sirram [Marris spelt backwards] Volcano Kettle was manufactured out…

It’s almost a cliche of old black and white spy movies: a man wearing a trench coat and a trilby checks his watch. He realises it has stopped. He winds it up and glances up at the local clock tower to set the time. Back then, all watches needed winding and keeping town clocks accurate was an important civic duty. However, that whole scenario is passing into history. It’s a curious business, considering the art of the watchmaker. When most of us were growing up, the trade of watchmaking, if not as common as plumbing, carpentry, or motor mechanics, was not at all rare. Everyone had a mechanical watch, and there was a ‘watchmaker’ employed at most of the bigger high street jewellers to clean, adjust, and service watches and,…

The automatic or self-winding movement was a significant advance. It employs a weight to wind the mainspring. Something like it was first invented by Swiss clockmaker Abraham-Louis Perrelet who used a side weight but Englishman John Hardwood patented the modern design in 1922. The other innovation that deserves more credit than it often gets is the co-axial escapement invented by George Daniels in 1974, which was finally commercialised by Omega, almost 20 years later Actual innovation in watchmaking is comparatively rare. When you think about it, it is not surprising this is the case. It is not a field that calls for great innovation, and hasn’t for a while. Quartz level accuracy was achieved by John Harrison’s famous chronometer H4 in around 1755. Even then, while it was a pocket…