Greg Vincent, Author at The Shed

Preserving the tools of yesteryear

29 September 2026

Collecting and preserving tools and machinery used by generations gone by is a passion and obsession for many sheddies. There’s nothing like using the shed for a restoration project on something that was made to last. Getting up close to the work of craftsmen and tools made with pride.
Our mainly rural pioneering past has meant bygone equipment is often left lying about and rusting in old farm sheds or thrown out at the tip but sometimes reverently collected and restored by people who care.
One of these is farrier Kevin Schimanski of Wanganui. A lifetime of shoeing and riding horses has kept Kevin pretty fit. Aged 78, he still shoes horses and enjoys getting into the saddle to play polo.

All aboard

25 September 2026

This project started after a visit to The Plains Vintage Railway and Historic Museum in Ashburton (www.plainsrailway.co.nz). Our three boys had really enjoyed the model trains and, on the way home, asked if I could build one for them. As the kilometres went by, a few ideas began to form, and the seeds for this project were planted.
Over the Christmas/New Year break, I decided to retire to my workshop and start turning the thoughts and ideas into the real thing. The overall design is based on the TR189 locomotive pictured below.

The Shed magazine October/November 2026 issue 129 on sale now

20 September 2026

Accomplished sheddie Chris Gordon’s extensive shed work continues, but this latest project comes with a Ducatisti advisory warning: This article contains graphic images and descriptions of procedures that some Ducati fans may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.
Chris wondered: with my previous projects completed, what to do next? Another motorcycle project would be good. I’d never done a café racer. The Gulf Racing livery was nice. What if I combine all of these? I say yes.
Consideration was then given to what base vehicle to use. By chance, a work colleague’s beloved 2001 Ducati ST4 Sports Tourer had recently suffered engine failure, leaving him stranded somewhere in the bowels of South Canterbury. Although the bike had been taken to a safe location, he couldn’t see a viable way forward for getting it back on the road.
It’s where?
Discussions throughout the week resulted in a deal being done, and then I was the proud owner. Slight wrinkle: it was in Woodbury, a small town just out from Geraldine, South Canterbury. A van trip south, and the bike was in my possession. During the loading of the bike in Woodbury, it became very apparent that this was a hefty beast. As I work alone, special considerations and handling techniques would be required to prevent further damage to the bike… or indeed, me.

The sound of silence

17 September 2026

As power tools become more and more affordable, the average shed or home workshop is full of tools that do work that would take ages with hand tools. Unfortunately, they also produce plenty of noise. If you are the one having all the fun with these great tools, you are likely to be well kitted out with the appropriate ear muffs, etc. But what about your neighbours or anyone else in the vicinity? There are ways to reduce harm to other people’s hearing, as well as the nuisance factor. First, let’s understand what noise is.

Dad will love this!

29 August 2026

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A seriously good prize for anyone who loves keeping their car looking its best.

Building a dead man’s switch

28 August 2026

Routers, power and cut-off saws, as well as angle grinders, can all inflict very nasty injuries in a fraction of a second. I can still remember nearly breaking my wrist many years ago when a heavy electric hand drill, fitted with a one-inch drill bit, decided it was time for me to revolve instead of it! A foot- operated cut-off switch would have been just the ticket on that occasion.
The dead man’s switch, as I will call it, is a simple device fitted in between the power supply and the operating equipment that requires a foot kept on it at all times for power to be supplied from the source to the equipment.
As it will undoubtedly spend a lot of its time on hard floors and possibly uneven surfaces, it needs to be robust as well as big enough to accommodate your foot comfortably. It should also be rugged and well protected from the scuffs and knocks it will undoubtedly suffer over the years.

You’ve got mail

20 August 2026

In a world beset by increasing regulations, building codes, local government bylaws, vehicle safety legislation, and the like, very few things remain untouched by the long, deadening arm of bureaucracy. However, one that has escaped is the humble mailbox.
While their suburban cousins have generally succumbed to the pressure to have standardised, mass-produced models available from hardware chain stores, their rural brethren have maintained their diversity, and still reflect their owners’ creativity and imagination.
In this era of increasing conformity, the rural mailbox stands out as a statement of individuality made by those of us unwilling to follow the common herd. Although postal services worldwide are coming under continued pressure from the new delivery platforms, the mailbox is still an integral part of any property, rural or suburban. A good mailbox should be thought of as a fine example of street art, a whimsical statement by its owners perhaps reflecting their passions and interests, while fulfilling a utilitarian function.

Creative duet

12 August 2026

For Dave Pauling, making guitars is the natural fusion of two passions – music and wood.
Dave, who has been playing the guitar since he was 13, also knew the pleasure of pottering in sheds from a young age. His father is a “sheddie” from way back who, among other things, still spends many hours restoring vintage vehicles.
“I grew up helping him with his Model Ts, making bows and arrows, or working on a model railway we had in the loft,” he says.
While Dave himself has spent a fair few hours restoring a 1965 Mustang imported from San Francisco, he prefers working with wood. There’s something about the malleability and smell of wood, as well as its provenance, he says. Wood, especially the recycled timber he uses to construct his guitars, has had a previous life. “Every guitar I make comes with a pre-history.”

Rust, me and CRC Evapo-Rust

11 August 2026

My tools and machinery were housed in an unlined shed for a few years, resulting in plenty of surface rust.
I tried removing it with abrasive products, but that involves an awful lot of manual labour and doesn’t always work well, not to mention the scratches it leaves on the tool’s surface. So I looked for a decent rust killer. CRC Evapo-Rust had a reputation, so I gave it a go.
Most of my affected tools were small enough to be immersed in the liquid. I had a container that I filled with Evapo-Rust, and an overnight immersion generally cleaned them up. The beauty of Evapo-Rust is that it’s reusable, so that container will last for the foreseeable future, probably a year for me.

A butterfly takes wing

6 August 2026

This simple butterfly pendant or brooch (depending on the back fittings) is a very good exercise in several basic goldsmithing techniques. It also can be decorated in several different ways to produce strikingly different finished pieces of jewellery.
I drew this design more than 25 years ago for a company that then made paua-shell jewellery. They stamped out their products, so I often made the master patterns in copper and from these patterns they spark-eroded the dies.
If this design was being made in an art school, it would be stuck to a sheet of silver and the basic shapes cut from there. If a design was made this way in, say, 18-carat gold and the wing outlines (as here) made from 2.5 mm thick metal, the outlay and waste material would be considerable from a 2.5 mm-thick sheet of 18-carat gold plate. But we will make it like a professional craftsman who has to live in the real world where costs matter.

Making a clean sweep – how to make a magnetic sweeper

31 July 2026

After mumblings of discontent about the potential punctures and those “messy engineers”, I decided to make a simple magnetic sweeper. The concept is not new. Magnets have been used for picking up road debris for a long time, and they are very effective.
The challenge, though, is where to find magnets that are strong enough, and how to effectively remove collected steel waste from the magnets. In an ideal world, it would be great to be able to turn the magnetism off and on.
This can be done, of course, by shifting the magnetic poles in the same way that magnetic chucks do on a surface grinder.
Very effective, but I couldn’t see our tool makers in the shed being happy to see the magnetic chuck from the surface grinder being “borrowed” to pick up nails.

The Shed magazine August/September 2026 issue 128 on sale now

19 July 2026

Sentimental Journey
Jack Ryder had a unique ability to hypnotise sports stars, politicians, and celebrities into donating items for his museum and sports memorabilia collection. Now, his grandson Clint manages this West Auckland landmark, but the property development vultures are circling.
It is hard to imagine a less likely location for a living museum than the back blocks of suburban West Auckland in Avondale.
Yet here, towards the end of a lengthy no-through road, the Ryder family hold tight to a self-built vestige of Auckland’s yesteryear. While the surrounding streets are turned into homogeneous multi-unit town housing, the Ryders’ two-acre slice of Pavlova Paradise remains, less a multi-generational home ground and more a celebration of the character of the city’s past.
Slipping through the tall white gates past the twin concrete lion sentinels at the street end of Ryder’s long hedge-lined driveway, the modern world slips away. Ahead, in the shade of a 100-year-old Pecan tree, an enclave of antique edifices opens out along the back-fence line like a set from a period movie. This corner of vintage Kiwiana is the handiwork of the late and industrious Jack Ryder, a coach-builder and wharfie, who began constructing it from a group of sheds spread across the property.

New Zealand Railways celebrates 150 years

16 July 2026

In 2013, Railways in New Zealand marked the anniversary in October this year of 150 years since the first broad-gauge public steam railway opened between Ferrymead and Christchurch City in 1863, a distance of seven kilometres. The original gauge was five feet three inches (1600 mm) wide, although the standard gauge for New Zealand railways was to become three feet six inches (1067 mm).
As the Railways 150 Years Committee describes it, “People and goods were barged from the Port of Lyttelton to Ferrymead, then taken by rail to Christchurch. The Ferrymead Line operated for ten years from 1863 until 1873 when the 2.6-kilometre tunnel connecting Lyttelton and the Heathcote Valley was completed and commissioned.”
The celebrations for the anniversary in 2013 are focused on operations and displays at the Ferrymead Heritage Park during Labour Weekend and include heritage steam trips with the restored locomotive Ja1240 from Christchurch to Arthur’s Pass, Timaru and Ashburton. The Railways 150 Committee includes representatives from rail organisations such as the Ferrymead Railway, the National Railway Museum of New Zealand, the Mainline Steam Heritage Trust, the Plains Railway, the Weka Pass Railway, the Steam Canterbury Preservation Society and others. Additional help and assistance is provided by KiwiRail.

How to pimp your shed

10 July 2026

The urge to decorate is universal, whether it be tattoos, floral designs on early Stanley rebate planes, or flames on hot-rod hoods, and sheds are no exception.
Big or small, simple or ultra-flash, sheds have one consistent feature – they all have decorations. These can be nostalgic, humorous, or more or less misogynistic (and often all three).
The mamo-centric female portraits which, in the past, were so common in garages and workshops are now rarely seen, perhaps because businesses which used to distribute complimentary “girlie” calendars can’t now risk the potential bad publicity. Or shed owners are embarrassed at the thought of their wives, children, or grandchildren seeing them. Or perhaps we have all become a little more mature.
Feminist relatives tell me that the purpose of pin-ups wasn’t decorative, but to make women visitors so uncomfortable that they wouldn’t linger, creating a woman-free zone. Sort of like farmers draping the skins of killed predators on fences to discourage their kin.

All hands to the tanks

18 June 2026

The call goes out. The volunteers pour into the military camp at Waiouru in the centre of the North Island. The only war, though, is going to be on rust, handbrake cables,
driveshafts, seized brake systems, the battered cylinders of tank engines and the ongoing tussle to turn out new truck engine parts.
Here is a group of willing sheddies who meet about once every six weeks under the keen oversight of George Pycraft. Their job: to continue repairing the heritage vehicles of the Army Museum at Waiouru.
Their “shed” is a group of four storage sheds housing 85 vehicles in various states of repair. They are as diverse as tanks, the 24-tonne M41 Walker Bulldog, the Centurion, and Valentine tanks (the latter still in World War II Pacific theatre camouflage), a 1941 Canadian Pattern Chevrolet gun tractor, an MB Jeep still wearing its 1942 Long Range Desert Group livery, an M113A1 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) painted in UN colours and of the type used in Bosnia, a 1943 Ford F30 truck, a 39-inch searchlight and an M816 recovery wrecker truck made by American Motor Corporation in 1969.
Pycraft, the museum’s Assistant Curator – Technology, says with the help and dedication of the museum’s volunteers they are slowly coming closer to having a complete running collection of heritage vehicles.

Greg Vincent