Friday, February 25, 2011

Essential equipment


With any set of building instructions come a list of equipment you will need. To be honest I don't think I've yet built anything while in posession of all the required tools. Hell, I carved a wooden rocking horse with nothing more than one square chisel and the liberal use of a belt sander and it turned out just fine.

For every tool you don't have you will need to be a bit more inventive or take a bit longer but a lack of fancy tools shouldn't stop you having a go.

There are a few things I think every shed should have. Some of these don't even have an immediately obvious purpose, but you will be the poorer without them. To this end I always like to have a dog somewhere nearby. The dog I use for day to day shed work is a large kangaroo dog called Baby Des. He serves several purposes. When too many small pieces of off cut timber are lying around Des will kindly remove a few and chew them to bits. If the air is becoming too clear and sweet scented he can remedy this with his own special formula. Most importantly he is the safety officer. I'm not the mosst tidy person and as a project progresses the shed becomes more and more cluttered with junk. This includes dropped or discarded screws and nails. I've trodden on these before and had them go deep into my foot which can spoil your whole day. Des is able to interpret the task for the day and exactly where will need to be to perform this task. He will cleverly position himself in such a way that I have to step over him the maximum number of times, thus ensuring I am always looking down to avoid both dog and pointy objects.

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