A cradle boat for baby is an ideal father's project, and when I got the news that I was going to be the father of a baby girl I thought that maybe I could get out of redecorating the baby's room if I embarked on a special project under the house. The idea of building a cradle boat was inspired by photos in an old magazine so I went bought a copy of The Expectant Father's Cradle Boat Book. However, the boats were either very basic or so intricate I'd be lucky to finish it in time for her 21st birthday.

A linisher is essentially two or more wheels in line with an abrasive belt and powered by a motor and with some means of tracking and tensioning. In this article we show you how to build this handy piece of equipment. A linisher is near the top of the list of the most-used tools in the workshop, whether for deburring steel to stop cuts in the hands, or sharpening tools and drills.

Fine scrap-metal is at the heart of the art created by one man in his Waikato shed. Just like a giant knight in progress - a bigger-than-life-size armoured figure with barrel staves for a chest because "barrel curves look great and the wood polishes up well." In fact, Adrian Worsley doesn't have a shed so much as a scrapyard. That's a bit unkind. He has a treasure trove of scrap.

I decided to convert my mill to computerised control in order to remove the limitations of manual slide movements. My impulse buy of a sale-item Chinese vertical mill seemed a great idea at the time, but the severe limitations of manual slide-movements soon made themselves apparent. Trying to cut a smooth arc by hand is almost impossible.

In this issue we create a simple Japanese hibachi or portable barbecue for summer. When I started to think about this project, I first had to ask "what is a hibachi?" You see different styles on the Internet and in stores. I see some of the mass production portable barbecues done in cast iron and some with gas cylinders, but the design I started thinking about is much simpler and just uses charcoal or wood chips.