The Shed

Our cover story this issue is about setting up your own CNC router in a home workshop. Who would have thought that such an amazing piece of kit would become available for home workshop use at such an affordable price? It is an incredible asset to a b

In these days of Covid and lockdowns, the rise in the number of those working from home has been considerable, to the point at which some businesses are embracing it as a new way of operating. When we think of home offices, we generally imagine a spa

Covid-19 and the lockdowns of the past few years have had something of a halo effect for some industries. “When we went into the first lockdown, I was prepared for the toughest year in the 10 years I’ve been with the business,” explains Miles Donald,

Dear Sir, As a regular reader of The Shed I am a great follower of the home workshops output as shown. There is one problem: they are all major jobs, and my efforts are quite small! At 92 I have had to curtail my activities to what can be achieved fr

So you’re back into the swing of the year but perhaps didn’t quite get all those projects finished that you had planned to do over the holidays. To help you get your decorating projects done, we’ve asked the Resene experts to share some of their top

Avegetable garden had been on my wish list for some time since downsizing to a smaller home. Life and other interests filled my time for a couple of years, but the second hard Covid lockdown made sure I had some downtime. It also meant that nothing h

My efforts at composting in the past few years were limited to throwing unwanted vegetation in a pile near the back boundary. Now I have this raised veggie garden, I thought it was about time I got more organised. Many years ago, I built a series of

To grow good plants, it is important to have good soil. Healthy soil has good physical, chemical, and biological fertility. Too often in the home garden, people concentrate on the chemical aspect by trying to control the acidity and also hoping some

Alive centre or dead centre that fits the tailstock of your lathe is necessary to support solid workpieces. However, you need a pipe centre to support hollow tubular items at the distant end from the lathe chuck. Without this support, a long workpiec

It is said Stephen Morse devised the taper system as a way to drive the twist drills he invented because drill chucks had not been invented at that time. When fitted into an identically tapered hole in a tailstock or machine spindle, a tapered drill

Before working on some new components to improve the camper van, it’s time to take a look at the magic that keeps alive the hardware I presented in the first three instalments of this series. In this fourth episode of “Enrico on the road”, we forget

Alibre workshop is a CAM program bundled with a CAD program that gives you all you need to get started with your design and machining projects. It’s the ideal solution for people and small businesses that make things on router tables and smaller CNC

When master bone carver Owen Mapp, CNZM, began carving bone and ivory in the 1960s there were no teachers and no bone carvings being sold commercially, so he had to learn just by doing it. “I was the first one. There were a few jade carvers but nobod

Owen uses a range of bone, tusks, and teeth, however for beginner carvers he recommends cow leg bone, which is solid and reasonably thick, inexpensive, and available from supermarket butcheries, farmers, and home kill. Cow bone is hard and rather bri

Everybody in New Zealand has the right to apply for a permit to cut up a whale, Owen advises, however as far as he is aware Pakeha will not be given a permit by the Department of Conservation (DOC). “DOC hands over stranded whales to the local iwi. S

Owen and Hanne’s house is full of art works and collectors’ items from around the world — African carvings, large ceramic vases made by Hanne, Palaeolithic stone tools, and tiny, intricately carved netsuke figures. Owen also collects weapons such as

Among Owen’s collection are tools from around the world — stone tools from Denmark and Sweden between 10,000 to 40,000 years old, and pre-European Māori tools he found in Marlborough. Sites were not protected by law when Owen was a young collector, a

NB: These events may be subject to COVID restrictions. Please check with organisers before attending Dragons & Taniwha: Owen Mapp Opening 9 April and running through to 17 July 2022 at Te Manawa Gallery in Palmerston North. Mokau Bone Carving Symposi

Reid Wilson has always enjoyed tinkering around with tools making things, and by the time he was 14 he had his own woodworking workshop, complete with power tools and machines. “I spent a lot of time researching woodworking on YouTube and reading and

For the past few months I’ve been cobbling together a Meccano set. The excuse is that grandchildren will have rainy-day entertainment when they visit. The real reasons are probably nostalgia and straight-out indulgence; I’ve always loved this medium.

Over the summer holidays, I was watching the movie Robin Hood on TV. Russell Crowe stars as Robin Hood in this version, and as he and his men came upon the settlement near Sherwood Forest he was met by the local Friar Tuck. In this movie, Tuck kept b

Special thanks to Peter McCurdy of the TPS for his contributions to this article Appearances can be deceiving and that certainly is the case for the Toroa ferry. While enormous progress has been made — including the renewal of the steel framework — n

The winding loop road from Nelson through the Moutere Valley to Motueka and back through Mapua is a weekend ritual for many leather-clad motorcyclists. This road can be an exhilarating experience, to say the least. The sedate rural charms include hop

We all know much more about epidemic diseases than we did a couple of years ago. We know that a disease-causing organism is called a pathogen. We are also more familiar than we were with the ways a pathogen can jump from one victim to another. The ag

Our hot-water cylinder (HWC) was made of copper and so had some value as scrap. It has been reported that the price of copper has increased by about a quarter in each of the past two years, reflecting the increased world demand for the metal. For ins

To repair the various holes in the Gib board wall linings, I cut pieces of plasterboard just larger than the openings and made two tiny holes in the middle of these patches through which I threaded a short length of welding wire to act as a handle. I

The first thing you notice when you step inside Graham’s shed is how spacious it is. Fitting really, as he is a big man with a penchant for making large wooden furniture. Most of his workstations and weighty machines are on castors for portability, a

When stacking timber, ensure the boards are filleted to stop them touching and getting mildew. “Once the timber gets that fungal discolouration, you cannot sand or stain it out; you end up with firewood.” Mark the timber before it’s machined to get a

"A Girl’s Guide to Woodworking" started back in 2017. Graham had a big workshop and an interest in teaching practical skills to local women. His son knew me and about my passion for woodworking and I had girlfriends, so he introduced us to see if we