Aldi tools

Aldi seem to have a steady influx of home tools at the moment some of which i have bought. These tools are aimed at the home DIY enthusiast. Here's the list of my new toys all of which may still be in your local Aldi (descriptions from aldi web site). I'm very happy with them btw.
Update, they may look toyish but they do the job, i also added a few stickers over the power craft logos, they look a lot better already.



500W Bench Drill £41


Whizzing through wood and metal with pinpoint precision, this brilliant bench drill will make light work of all sorts of workshop tasks.
9 adjustable speeds (from 280-2350rpm)
16mm keyed chuck with safety guard
Drilling capacity: metal 16mm, wood 35mm
Fully-adjustable table with 0-45° left or right tilt
54mm clamp width
Sturdy cast-iron construction
Depth stop for precision drilling
Magnetic safety switch


240W Bench Grinder/Belt Sander £19.99


Dual-purpose system that will flatten/smooth out all sorts of imperfections in metal or woodwork pieces for a cleaner finish.
No load speed: 2950rpm
Grinding disc (for metal): 150 × 20 × 12.7mm
Abrasive grinding belt (fitted): 50 × 686mm (Grade: 150)
2 spare belts included – 50 × 686mm (Grade: 150)




204 Piece Drill Bit Set £19.99



40W Model Building and Engraving Set £10.69

Super-light, super-versatile tool for the dedicated model maker/arts and crafts enthusiast. It contains all you need to achieve a professional looking finish on a variety of creative projects. Includes 40 accessories for drilling, cutting, grinding, sanding, engraving and polishing.
Variable speed: 0-20,000rpm
Adaptor AC 230V, DC 18V
Transparent storage/carry case



1020W Angle Grinder £17.99


Metalwork, bricks, paving slabs, ceramic tiles, rusty rivets – slice through them all with ease.
1020 watts, 230V, 50Hz
2 diamond blades included
Safety goggles included


24V Cordless Hammer Drill £39.99
Versatile drill, including an all-purpose bit set, to tackle a range of jobs from masonry to metalwork.

24V/1.5Ah NiCad battery
2 mechanical speeds
Quick charger with LED load indication
Adjustable side handle
9 bits (plus bit holder)
Peacock keyless chuck (1.5-3mm)



Also bought extra grinding/cutting disks and other odd and ends, i have quite a few projects lined up which i will be posting here hopefully with video.

A greenpete success story

If your a fan of blades then watch this video, this guy has been making knifes for about a year (at time of making of video). He got started by watching the fantastic video from greenpete
and a year later he's making stunning blades like this.
I recommend you watch greenpetes video just to see how easy it is to make your very own knife, i recently bought all the tools he used but still need to get to the scrap yard. If i can make a knife half as good as this one then i'd be a very happy chappy.

The youtube page is HERE
DevilDwarfBladesmith

Palmyra woman finds roses made from birch shavings 'so real'

PALMYRA, Mo. — Joyce Wagner knew about good, unique crafts -- she'd been buying them for years.
But the Palmyra resident never really made any of her own until last year when she spotted wooden roses at a fair in Fulton.
"People were walking by, and I thought 'Why aren't those wilting?' " Wagner said.
She tracked down the booth selling the long-stemmed roses and discovered that they were wooden, made from birch shavings.
Wagner bought eight dozen and gave them away, then decided to track down the supplier herself. Once she found the maker in Colorado, she ordered 3,200 the first time. She has placed similar orders three more times since June.

Wagner's venture with the roses, along with her other business of selling streak-free cleaning cloths, has proven so successful she's quit her full-time work. Every weekend, she heads somewhere for an event where she sells the roses.

Story from HERE

Saving Chile's southern wilderness

Charles Darwin wrote about the region during the voyage of the Beagle

It is not every day that a Wall Street bank finds itself in possession of a chunk of land 50 times the size of Manhattan, covered in pristine forest, windswept grassland and snow-capped mountains.

But that's the position Goldman Sachs found itself in, in 2002 when it bought a package of distressed debt and assets from a US company called Trillium.

The resulting conservation project in the very south of Chile has been hailed by the bank and its partners, a US-based NGO, as an example of how the public and private sectors can work together to safeguard the world's last remaining wildernesses.

Chilean environmentalists are more sceptical but, even so, have largely applauded the project.

The story of what is now known as the Karukinka nature reserve dates back to the 1990s when Trillium bought land on Tierra del Fuego - a cluster of inhospitable islands between Chile and Argentina - clinging to the southernmost tip of South America.

The company planned to use the land for logging and wanted to cut down the lenga - a type of beech tree found only in this part of the world.

Environmental groups opposed the project and it eventually failed.

That was when Goldman Sachs stepped in, buying up Trillium's assets, including the land.

"It's not often that you're in a position where you buy a security and learn that you have 680,000 acres of land in Tierra del Fuego," says Tracy Wolstencroft, head of Goldman Sachs' Environmental Markets group.

"The more we realised what we had the more we realised how unique this property was."

The bank considered selling the land but realised it would face the same opposition as Trillium had.

So it took what some environmentalists now regard as a radical and enlightened step - it gave the land away to a New York-based environmental group, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Full story HERE

Nature defies the Big Freeze and heralds spring

Published Date:
02 March 2009
By Richard Morris
Ignore the cold snaps and big freezes - spring is on its way.
According to a recent nature survey bumble bees have been spotted here in 1066 County. Wildlife recorders have also logged birds building nests, snowdrops and frogspawn - all signs that spring is sprung.

However, according to one wildlife expert, it is not necessarily good news - especially with more cold weather predicted.

Shaun Nixon, manager for the Nature's Calendar, said: "The timing of natural events is one of the most responsive aspects of the natural world to warming, so it is an important indicator of change."

"There will be variations year on year, however, if we look back over the past 30 years we can see a marked advancement of spring, up to two weeks for insects and a week for plants.

"The fundamental concerns thrown up by spring's gradual advance are that food chains also come under pressure or even break down and species fooled by warmer weather into activity, blossoming or breeding can very vulnerable and can get caught out by the sort of freeze not uncommon in March."

As always this story was stolen from HERE

Maple syrup producers wait on Mother Nature

MONCTON - As David Briggs trudges into his forest of sugar maples, he thinks out loud about the coming syrup season.

"We can only hope it's not like last year," he said. "Not that there's much we can do about it - other than hope."

His boots break fresh holes in the snow around hundreds of trees, signalling the beginning of a new season.

New Brunswick ranks third in the world in maple syrup production and is home to the country's largest organic and conventional syrup producers.

Some of the province's 112 maple syrup makers already have spent months tapping their trees and setting up lines of plastic tubing in preparation for just a few weeks of production that may begin any day now.

They are praying that this year the weather will co-operate.

Two straight seasons of foundering production has cost the industry millions, spiking prices and decimating any reserve of syrup around the world.

"I mean 2007 was bad, but 2008 was miserable," Yvon Poitras, general manager of the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association, said.

"It was the worst year in 35 years of production. We didn't even produce 50 per cent of normal production."

Canada accounts for 85 per cent of the world's production of maple syrup, the majority of it coming from Quebec. Each year the industry prefers to have a reserve of at least 30 per cent of its product to meet higher demands, Poitras said.

But there is currently virtually no reserve.

"If we don't get a good season we're going to be in big, big trouble," he said. "There are no reserves left anywhere. There is a lack of product all over the world."

Sap drips from maple trees when temperatures fluctuate from -5"‚C at night to 5"‚C during the day, usually beginning in mid-March.

Last year, snow storms buried tubing and forced producers to spend thousands of dollars clearing obstructions.

When the season finally came, it lasted only four days before temperatures turned drastically warm, ruining the sap season.

"We thought we had it made last year. The old guys were saying it was going to be a great season, and then nothing," he said. "We depend so much on Mother Nature that it's unbelievable.

"Everyone's got their fingers crossed, their legs crossed and everything else crossed to see what Mother Nature is going to dump on us this year."

New Brunswick can produce more than four million pounds of maple syrup each year, originating from more than two million tree taps.

That ranks behind Quebec and Vermont.

Poitras said the industry as a whole lost more than $5 million last year.

Even though syrup producers have had a difficult time of late, the industry could easily grow bigger. Poitras said his association is working with the province to utilize more Crown land that is heavily covered with maples.

New Brunswick is home to the largest single producer with 168,000 taps near Saint-Quentin. It is also home to a producer in Bath with 110,000 taps for organic syrup.

"Those are two things we love to boast about," Poitras said. " But if the weather doesn't co-operate, they may be the biggest, but the biggest of nothing in not much."

Gus Hargrove, owner of Canadian Organic Maple Co. Ltd., of Bath agrees.

His business has tapped into a growing sugar market, as an organic trend steers followers away from the refined substance. Hargrove now has an international market that spans Germany and China.

"The demand actually opened up some of the market for us, but it would be nice to have more to supply it," he said. "They seek you out because of it (a decrease in supply), especially in the last two years.

"But we're optimistic because we have had a couple bad years, so hey, third time lucky."

Briggs, the fifth generation in his family of maple syrup producers from the Moncton area, said there's no way to know what this season will have in store.

Regardless, the industry has served his family well. He plans to expand Rocky Mountain Maples to include a year-round business in Riverview to sell his maple syrup, butter, cream, candy, barbeque sauce and classic taffy.

"There's absolutely nothing we can do other than get ready for it," Briggs said.

"But this is a growing industry. Producers from all over the province are growing their operations."

Story stolen from HERE

The Old Lady's Camping Trip