The Shed 102, May — June 2022

There are great sheds, amazing sheds, and incredible sheds, but there are also sheds that you could call the ‘king of sheds’.
One such shed is the workshop of West Auckland’s Rudi Buchanan Strewe. In his shed, Rudi turns his hand to blacksmithing, engineering, tool restoration, building hot rods, sculpturing, and so much more. We had such a great time when we visited Rudi and watched him at work.
The Shed magazine has been published since 2005 and there are some great projects in our archives that deserve to be shared with a new generation of readers — some articles are just too good to be published only once in their life. So we are commencing a new series each issue called From The Shed Archives where we will share articles of old that our current readers may not have had the pleasure of enjoying in print.
We kick off the series with a project on how to make a classic Cape Cod chair. With plans and an easy-to-follow step-by-step process, this could be the next project for you.
Our very own Jude Woodside decided that he needed a decent apron for protection when he was welding in his workshop. On the hunt, he came across Julian Stone in his lifestyle-block home in the Waikato and found not just the apron he was looking for but so much more.
Julian of Messed up Motors is a man of many talents and a few online offerings to boot. 
Our Off the Grid sheddie Murray Grimwood was given a scale-model kit of an amphibious vehicle to build and an old paperback book. The bonus was that the book was about one of his all-time great heroes, Ben Carlin.
Murray describes the life and times of Ben Carlin then sets about building his scale-model kit, adding some sweet modifications to it just for fun.
Sheddies come in all shapes and sizes with differing skills and reasons for their projects. George Rose is not your usual sheddie in that he makes sculptures for a living in his workshop. In this issue, George tells us how he went about making his latest meccano-inspired piece, Dark Vueccano.
Alex Broxholme has a very full shed of projects and tools and shares with us all what he knows about how to sharpen plane blades and more. Sounds simple and it is … if you do it right.
In the last in our series of articles on how to brew a great beer, Bryan Livingston of Brewers Coop compares the great IPAs of the West and East Coasts of the US.
Ritchie Wilson gives us a review of a book that will appeal to many a sheddie. “In her book on Dr Wilson’s widow, Woman With the Iceberg Eyes: Oriana F Wilson, Katherine MacInnes records the money that Mrs Wilson received from the publicly subscribed Scott Memorial Fund. Like Lady Scott, she had absolutely no money of her own.”
Our resident Shed shrink Mark Seek tells us about a new men’s group in Christchurch where guys can chat and have a coffee once a month. It’s good to get together and share tales.
In the fifth and final instalment of the electronics series Improving Your Motorhome’s Technology, Enrico turns his attention to the user interface.
Ritchie Wilson heads out to visit and meet Robin Wilson has held the position of loco foreman at Christchurch’s miniature railway for over 10 years. This railway is run by the Canterbury Society of Model and Experimental Engineers (the CSMEE).  which is a place to indulge your passion for models and machines.
Trevor Stanley-Joblin has had his ’50s Ultimate Courier radiogram since new and it has been his workshop buddy for years and years. He figured that it was time to restore it and bring it back into the living room and enjoy some old tunes.
Hammers are a tool in every home and workshop but they have evolved over perhaps millions of years and were probably the very first tool. In this issue of the magazine, we have part one of The History of Hammers by Bob Boland.
Sometimes you just need a change from the usual and go looking for something new to float your boat. Cherol Filbee did just that and has ended up having a lot of fun making puppets. Cherol shares with us her methods of creating some distinctive puppets, with strings attached.
We close this issue with our usual Back O’ The Shed column by Jude Woodside. Now, Jude is very cross with Russian President Vladimir Putin currently and his murderous behaviour in the Ukraine, and pleads with Vlad to see sense.

Click here to see a fully illustrated content rundown of this issue on our The Shed website