My Shed

In The Shed 82, the Jan/Feb 2019 issue, its time to join the low & slow cooking revolution - to do that we need to build our own offset smoker barbeque.
In our cover story this issue we showcase three sheddies from around the country as they have their own way of making a smoker just the way they like it. Two out of steel and one out of a wine barrel, yes, a wine barrel. We have all you need to know about low & slow cooking with rubs, woods, cuts - the lot. Get building, get smoking and get stuck in.

This design-and-make plan will enable you to make a small pan sheet metal folder that folds mild sheet metal from 18 to 26 gauge. With it, you’ll be able to fold “U” or “Z” sections or a lip on a sheet of metal. The way we’ve constructed the metal folder will also allow you to bend metal to more than 90 degrees—try that with two pieces of angle iron mounted in the vice.

To build it, I concentrated on the advice of most waka ama advocates: that the canoe should be made of locally available materials, quick to assemble on the launching area and very cheap to make.
This waka cost me less than $200 by using recycled material and left-over house paint for the finish. I did not work from plans but used a cardboard model that I made as a guide. The waka takes less than two minutes to assemble after we take it off its trolley.

Surprisingly, the modern Red Band gumboot is virtually identical to the original model, apart from the addition of a sponge innersole. Skellerup made the boots in its Woolston factory in Christchurch until the late 80s. It continues to make all the components and the boots are still handmade the same way in Skellerup’s factory in Jiangsu, China.

I regularly need to cut a multiple number of short pieces on my saw bench for small box components, kids’ building blocks, small pieces for furniture etc. In the past I have clamped in place various contraptions to ensure each piece is the same length. It is difficult to hold small pieces to cut them accurately but this jig solves the problem. It attaches to the saw bench in seconds and probably takes longer to get out of the cupboard than to fit.

What could be better than spending time in a shed? How about a bigger shed, the right tool for the job on hand, and ready access to timely tips and tricks that might save a wince-inducing blunder?  
If that sounds like a good deal, you could hardly do better than to take yourself off to your local Men’s Shed and get that project under way there.

The odds of winning a subscription prize with The Shed are better than Lotto.
These three lucky subscribers each won a Karcher package of a water blaster and a wet vacuum worth $998 from The Shed Issue 80!

In The Shed 81, Nov/Dec 2018 issue, we head to Blenheim to meet school teacher and dedicated sheddie Dave Pauling.
Dave makes extraordinary guitars in his shed from recycled native timber and shares his skills with us so readers can have a go too. He nicknames some of his electric guitars ‘Les Paulings’ - nice touch.

More good news for Australian Shed readers - we have just lowered our magazine subscription rates for you. Now that we are shipping copies of The Shed for newsagents to sell nationwide, we can also include subscription copies and avoid those huge postal costs. An Australian subscription was NZ$130, now only NZ$94! Dive in, head to magstore.nz to sign up.

As the saying goes, there are only two certainties; death and taxes. While we can do little about the latter, we can at least be prepared for the former. That is the motivation behind the group that gathers every Wednesday in a former warehouse in Rotorua