Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Menzshed 26 April 2011

Projects on hand

Stuart Hudson, Jim Yates and Henry Hodge have been busy painting the children’s chairs for Kilbirnie Plunket and have now completed 6 of them. There are 4 more chairs and a table which need attention and Jim Yates hopes to get them to the shed by Thursday. Henry Hodge did such a good job repairing the first 6 - and with luck he may return this week to deal with the second batch - it’ll be good to see you back Henry.

DIY Power

Robin Bodley, who is a recognised expert in the differences between scale and surface rust, has an interesting project on the go at the shed. He’s constructing a home based electricity generator using a man-powered bicycle frame, with a stator that he obtained from an old washing machine. (Do hope I’ve got the technical description right!). Robin hopes to demonstrate and exhibit in the future. I’m sure he’ll pass on tips to anyone interested in constructing a similar machine to reduce their domestic power bill

Coffee News

There’s palpable air of sophistication at the MenzShed these days. When we first started, smoko was usually a cup of lukewarm brown stuff made from the remnants that you could scrape from the coffee jar. However all that changed with the arrival of man-about-town, Les Collins, he of the trilby hat Les introduced a touch of class to the shed by donating a working coffee machine that used real coffee beans. Now we have been gifted a second one and Norman Kabak is spending some time get-ting it into optimum condition.

A Ring of Steel

Rolf Kluger called in last Thursday for a natter. He donated welding equipment to the shed which he would like to see used. Rolph has a wealth of Wellington engineering stories in his backpack.

Our Treasurer, Jim Yates, is looking forward to sign-ing up members for the shed this week. The annual subscription currently stands at $1.00 - so get your gold coin ready when you visit.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) from 1pm the evils of the world will be discussed by the Grumpy Old Men. On Thursday the real work will continue on our various projects.