The Shed

You know how it went. You started your working life in your teens, working 9–5 Monday to Friday in a job that ticked a few boxes – such as an income; if you were very lucky, it was a job that you really wanted and enjoyed. Then that wonderful creation eventually arrived, called ‘The Weekend’, and it was your time to do what you really wanted and really enjoyed. I reckon that it’s what you did in those weekend moments that actually dictated the person you ended up becoming today. For me, it was not spending the weekend writing stories or reading newspapers but an obsession with entertainment and music. What I have ended up becoming is an entertainment supplier using words and photographs to achieve that. A couple of…

As shed sizes go, Gary Norton’s is a megastore. It needs to be, because, despite the square footage, space is at a premium, crammed as it is with “a bit of everything” and no end of enterprises in various states of progress. There is a saying about the more you have, the more you are occupied. Luckily, Gary and wife Raewyn are as industrious as they come. They run their rural property as close to organic as possible. Even when they both worked full time away from their land, they still managed to raise 22 different breeds of chickens, rear calves, fatten sheep, and breed goats. Lately, they have been scaling back; they now tend only two kinds of chooks – Jersey Giants and English Dorkings – some ducks, a…

In late April, the city of Ghent, Belgium, hosted the annual Ghent Maker Fair (makerfairegent.be/nieuws), an exhibition dedicated to all the crazy inventions of makers in Belgium. On the fair’s opening night of 30 April, the Belgian Power Tool Drag Racing Championship entertained the visitors in a one-off event. Popular in many countries around the world, this is a spectacular race of electric ‘vehicles’ powered by 220V AC and built with one or two power tools such as drills, chainsaws, and any other kind of electric-powered hand tool. The only rule is that it must be a tool that can be used by hand. In the next issue of The Shed, Issue No. 110, I will give more detail on the challenge. If it sounds like your kind of fun,…

Hi guys, On page 42 of the article Kiwi Ingenuity in The Shed Issue No. 107, there was an interesting photo that I think would be worth expanding on with a separate How I Did It article: the Honda motor hidden in the stern! A simple and cheap motor interests me, and I would love to see a lot more detail on the whole set-up. Thanks for an awesome mag. Regards, Dave Robbie Thanks for getting in touch, Robbie; that seems like a great idea for a follow-up article. We will approach the boat builder, Neville Watkinson, and hopefully you’ll see an article on that engine install in the coming months. Ed. WILL FAME EVER COME? Hi Greg, Hope you and yours are well. After being on the front cover of Issue…

What’s happening online at the-shed.nz? 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. Some uploads of the past few months include: The Shed profiles a blacksmith’s historic Banks Peninsula workshop https://the-shed.nz/fire-dance-a-blacksmith-is-a-master-of-the-ancient-art-of-heat-and-hammer/ Build a wooden blanket box https://the-shed.nz/out-of-the-box/ How to make gears for a vintage Orrery timepiece https://the-shed.nz/top-gears/ Installing and setting up an efficient-running electric hot water cylinder https://the-shed.nz/hot-water-tune-up/…

It’s easy to have a dream for a new lifestyle; it’s a little harder to marry it to reality and actually generate income while enjoying it and staying loyal to your original concept. My wife and I had a dream of selling handcrafted furniture. After completing a full-time course at the Centre for Fine Woodworking in Nelson and working for other fine craftsmen, we moved south from Nelson to Arrowtown and set up a woodworking venture. People often ask us about how we made the crucial decisions in those early days – such as where to set up shop and how to allocate our limited budget for machinery. We could have worked out of a shed, barn, or even our home garage, but we opted for a relatively small 100m2…