Sheds and their members decide the projects to undertake. However most sheds throughout New Zealand take on some community projects, examples include repairing toy library stock, building playgrounds for early learning centres, repairing old bikes fo

One of the things guitar legend Eric Clapton and I have in common is tinnitus. Eric blames the years he spent in the band Cream, playing in front of the bass speakers of fellow band member Jack Bruce, who always had his amplifier turned up to 11. One

Additional photography courtesy of Athanasius Santamaria When Athanasius (Athow) Santamaria made an “impulse decision”, to buy a pile of old Austin parts in 2015, he didn’t really have a project in mind. At the time, he was a freshly minted DOC range

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 the

I’m a boomer. I was born in that exalted era between the end of World War II and 1964. I was a rebel, a hippy, a rock music fan. I grew up during one of the longest sustained periods of peace and prosperity. That changed when the Americans brought us

Get ready for the wheels and tracks extravaganza as Wheels at Wanaka makes a triumphant return next year, promising petrol and diesel heads an unforgettable experience. Nestled against the stunning backdrop of Lake Wanaka, Australasia’s largest all-v

About eight months ago, the groundworks contractor that rented my yard went out of business. Among the many things left behind were dozens of wooden pallets – some in good condition, some not so great. I do hate waste, but it’s not always easy to use

My six-year-old grandson, Mars, has been diagnosed as autistic. With his birthday coming up, I decided to build him a hut – one that could go outside or in the garage; one where he could do whatever he wanted to and it wouldn’t be a problem. Mars lik

If your shed is larger – much larger – than your house, is it still a shed? This is a question Marty and Zoe Radford might well ponder in their spare time – if they had any. Their house, a well-furnished, modern two-level dwelling, is built into a co

Who would have thought that a car designed and created in 1922 would still be inspiring young achievers to replicate it more than 100 years later. Astonishing, don’t you think? After WWI, Herbert Austin was in awe of the success of the USA’s Ford Mot

In the Kiwi sailing world, there are a handful of evergreen designs; ones that got it so right that they’ve stood the test of time. The Starling dinghy, the Noelex 22, and the Farr 727 come to mind; but the one I have the most affection for is a wee

In this second instalment, we will see how we achieved the same consistent result playing chess with Arduino UNO R4 Minima, the cheaper version of the new Arduino board, without the LED matrix display and the ESP32 S3 on the board. While Enrico was d

Building an acoustic guitar is a very satisfying project that is within reach of most people with a modicum of woodworking experience. I have speed-built a guitar within a week, but for a more considered approach, it is more usual to take three to fo

Making the right decisions for your business when choosing welding equipment and processes, including the consumables, can be confusing and overwhelming, with so many brands and multiple platforms to choose from. So it’s reassuring to have the benefi

We live in a rural setting and have a large hedge that extends all the way to a dry river bed, which provides an excellent conduit for possums. The local pest people had previously offered to set some traps as part of their TB-monitoring program, but

Engineers, hobbyists, and makers can now purchase the innovative Raspberry Pi 5 from element14, Raspberry Pi’s exclusive global licensee. The new board features a 2.4GHz quad-core, 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU, with 512KB L2 caches and a 2MB shared L3 c

We walk into Bill Thomas’s Waikanae Beach house through his shed. The trestle tables in the shed are filled with things Bill plans to show us but they have dust-sheets over them for now. Inside his home, a tiny house awaits. The tiny-house project is

markseek@rocketmail.com The Rolling Stones released the single Time is on my Side in 1964, and to be quite honest, I can’t think of anything more prophetic for the current trio with their combined age of somewhere near 240 years. It would appear that

The story of Chris Gordon making a seatless tricycle from components inexpensively sourced from Christchurch’s EcoShop was related in part 1 of “Chris Gordon keeps busy” – The Shed, issue 113. A consequence of buying several second-hand children’s bi

I have to admit that I was rather late to the party with this device, which was introduced in late 2017. Readers may have heard of the BBC micro:bit (The Shed July–August 2018), which was developed to enable UK schoolchildren to learn coding. It was

Supporting postal delivery: It will come as no surprise to anyone that not only is the amount of mail being delivered to your home’s letterbox decreasing but the service itself is also actually in danger of completely disappearing. Magazine subscript

NEW ISSUE ON SALE NOW One of the greatest of classic cars, the Mustang, hits the 60-year milestone this year so we party and showcase one of the best-presented Shelby Mustangs in New Zealand: a Paul Fahey replica, driven by long-time classic racer Ro

LETTER OF THE MONTH Recently, I visited Hokitika. Forty-three years ago, I was appointed teacher of technical drawing and metalwork/engineering at Westland High School. The workshop was brand new. It was my job to set it all up and create the courses

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

I know this is stating the bleeding obvious, but what this publication is all about is sheds – what some folks do in them, what we can help readers create in them, and the spaces themselves. They look and smell great, and have a timeless beauty – the

Chris’s job involves designing electrical gear for power-network companies. Most of New Zealand’s electricity generating companies purchase gear from the company for which he works. In his spare time, he makes stuff in his very well equipped workshop

If the walls of the Williams & Sons shed in Rawene could talk, the conversation would be deafening. This corrugated iron hut has been a feature of the Northland town’s wharf and waterfront since 1873. It was originally built as a repository for dry s