Bike stand day

Busy day at the Shed today (23-04-19). Dozen people there, plus others who dropped in. Several people dropped in with bikes to repair

Hmm.. the back yard is filling up with bikes

Rick repairing a saddle

Terry with a hoe that someone had brought in to mend and which he did

But the biggest achievement of the day was to put up tow Sheffield bike stands. This took a lot of digging, mainly by Rick and the use of a posthole digger (see Chris wielding one below)

Juen in fromt of the new bike stand together with its first occupant
(my bike)

There always have to be two watching when anybody is digging a hole. This time its Jim & Sal

It was a busy day on the Parade generally as we basked in what might be the last of the good weather

A team from "Songs of Praise" were busy interviewing people from the Den community cafe next door on the pavement cafe they had set up. Great for the free coffee and cake we got. Not so good in that we had to wait until they finished before we cold use the hammer drill to make holes for the bike stands

Rick & Terry in front of the completely concreted in bike racks

Meanwhile at the end of Merseybank Parade,
the mural has been finished

Finishing the Rain Shelter

Only four panels left to go on the rain shelter and we (mainly Michael!) managed to fix them very quickly yesterday, so it is finally done. Checked them out this morning and it did its job with the rain

Checked them out this morning and the rain shelter
did its job in keeping the rain off

Building the Rain Shelter

The Rain Shelter

Today (30-03-19) was the day that we worked on building a rainshelter in the back yatd of the Men in Sheds shop. Thanks to the hard work of Michael Schaefer a volunteer for Chorlton Good Neighbours who agreed to help us with this, we were close to finishing the rain shelter today. Here are photos of the day which mercifully was sunny  and no rain or (importantly) wind

The shelter will be used for bike repairs and storage. Thanks also to Chris, Saleem and Malcolm for their assistance. We aim to put on the final 4 panels on the roof of the shelter, this coming week

Flame Painting with copper

On March 5th Denis Colbridge came to the Merseybank shop and gave a presentation about Flame Painting with copper. 

This involves working with thin sheet copper with an open flame (oxy-propane) which can produce copper of almost any colour. Denis who has an engineering background got interested in flame painting when he was based in the United States. He went on a course run by Skip Mathews (see photo) in Arkansas. 

Skip Mathews at work

Below are some examples of flame painting. He enthused us about the possibility of doing this at SMMiS. Denis has much of the necessary tools and materials and could teach us how to do it

We will set up a group to look at the possibility of engaging in this craft, safely and affordably. Hopefully if we get into production we think there would be a ready market for the bowls, pendants, jewelry, butterflies, copper leaves etc that we might produced

January 2019 update

We've been continuing to operate during the recent bad weather in January 2019, though enthusiasm to do outdoor projects has waned a little, with the hope of us getting moving on them when the weather improves.

There has been a steady stream of people coming into the shop looking for help with their bikes, doors, shelves and so on. We have done our best to assist local people with small projects like this

The wood for the raised beds project arrived (see photos) and we are talking with Barlow Moor Community Centre about getting you people in the building of these raised beds which will help in the greening of the local area