The Shed 85, July — August 2019

Always wanted your own knife-maker’s forge? Well, in the July/August edition of The Shed (issue 85), we show you how to make two different styles; one using LPG power and one using used engine oil to create the heat. What a great way to dispose of old oil and give great results without incurring huge build costs.

Then we go traveling. First stop, Whanganui, where sheddie Alby Redmond taught himself woodturning six years ago and went on to master the meticulous craft of segmented turning. Then we head to the USA to meet the Miller family who use technology for exercise and fun with the all-electric three-wheeled trike for Mum, built by Sean and the children. Ritchie Wilson heads to Kaiapoi to immerse himself in all there is to know about making twist drills, thanks to a Kiwi business — Patience and Nicholson — that’s been doing just that since 1962. And Murray Grimswood give us all the current low-down on installing solar power in your home.

Greg Holster is back in The Shed after a five-year gap with part one of his fantastic seven-part series on how to weld, with the first installment covering learning the skills of ARC welding. In our BBC:micro bit experiment this issue, Enrico Miglino creates a software-controlled drawing machine in the spirit of the 1960s Spirograph toy.
With winter well and truly here, there’s a bit of a power theme running through this issue and we look at what you can do with free-standing generators when the power goes down — which is quite often in our storm-filled winters. Mark Beckett reviews some generators and discusses what you can do to hook them up to your home to get you through.

Off The Grid this month looks at how Murray Grimwood heats his house using solar heat, which gives his home a thermo siphoning heating supply, and Enrico Miglino explains the many reasons to be very careful when choosing software for your home laser.

Avid Shed Magazine fan, Emil Nye, shares his top 20 favourite tools of all time from his home workshop before we head to Taranaki to a retirement home that has created a great working shed for its residents. Coen Smit is back this issue showing us how to make some great eventual family heirlooms with some wooden chests and boxes, and Jude closes off this issue by extolling the virtues of sharp knives.