Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Make”
The perfect small wood fired pizza oven… I’ve wanted a wood fired pizza oven of my very own since I was in Rwanda back in 2007. Many pleasant evenings were spent eating delicious pizza made in the roaring hot oven in a little pizza place a stones throw from the Novotel Hotel (now the Umubano Hotel I think) just outside central Kigali. And to be honest there was a healthy logic to eating food which had been heated to around 300C (570f or so), if you understand what I mean….. …
And I’ve bagged a world record pallet on my latest hunting trip. This has to be the daddy of all pallets I reckon. All the way from Poland to Norway it came, carrying a huge staircase. What better end for this pallet other than to recycle it into something that will give us years of comfortable pleasure. It’s difficult to get a sense of scale from the photo (I know I got caught out when I went to collect it without the trailer!) but the ‘slats’ on top are 2″ x …
I remember my dad showing me this drilling brass trick more than 30 years ago. And who better to show you, other than the guys on the Home Model Engine Machinist forum because they really know their stuff when it comes to tricky machining jobs. Here is what Deanofid had to say about an easy way to modify a standard metal HSS drill bit to easily (and safely) drill holes in brass… Brass has a tendency to grab the sharp edge on drill bits. Bits for brass, whether drill bits …
The humble ‘cookie tin’ water heater beloved by chickens everywhere gets some new ‘bells and whistles’ this year at our place with the addition of: Double bulb setup in case one bulb fails (not bullet proof but a little better). Thermostatic control with probe. Concrete ring surround. Stone pot to better hold the heat (better than the old metal one). Raised to keep water clean. Alarm if water freezes. I was determined to improve our water heater setup this year, not only to make our life easier, but also for our very kind neighbours …
Old and unwanted gas bottles are just ideal for a small firepit Open firepits are all the rage these days as we try to maximise garden living on those ‘not quite warm enough’ evenings and lets be honest, there are plenty of those! I saw an ‘open dish’ type firepit in a local store but it was on sale for rather more than I’d like to pay, (I am a bit cheap) but then I thought I could see a similar shape in an old steel gas bottle, hmm…. Here …
From a section of a rotten tree… OK, I have to be honest, the title of this post is a little misleading because I didn’t actually make this particular nest box; the woodpecker did! (I’ll give you a tip later though for yours). Let me tell you the story. Last week we had some unusually windy days and on the final stormy day a pair of old rotten trees blew down over the stream at the bottom of the garden. One of these trees was our ‘woodpecker’ tree. An old, …
Everybody likes a good fire don’t they? But sometimes they are a little dangerous and even against the law at certain times of the year. So the easiest way to ensure fire safety is to contain your fires by having them inside something that allows you to control it and prevent it from spreading. This is a scaled down version of a 200L (40 gallon) old oil drum that we used at work to burn diseased wood from house demolitions. I do apologize, but many wood worm were harmed in …
