Woodturning: Barry Cardiff’s latest passion

A woodturned helicopter, courtesy of Barry Cardiff.

When is a shed just a shed, and when it is something else? Foxton Beach resident Barry Cardiff, 84, has a shed and then some - it’s probably the size of three garages, and it is full.

“I probably need a bigger one soon,” he said.

Hundreds of hand tools, machines of various sizes, old engines, benches, and spare parts are some of the things you’ll find inside his shed. He and his wife extended the house soon after they bought it, with Barry building the shed while she developed the garden and orchard.

Barry Cardiff with his 1948 ED Comp Special 2cc engine for a model airplane.

He’s a lifelong vintage car enthusiast who once restored a 1915 Triumph motorbike found on a farm in Bulls that, upon reflection, had a connection to his family. Upon returning to Hamilton, he found the bike was one his then-father-in-law had sold years before to a bike shop in Whanganui.

“He had to take the bus home after he sold it. I still had the ownership papers, and it was definitely his old bike.”

Cardiff had worked for years as a drainage inspector, having obtained his drainage ticket and plumber’s ticket was he was young.

“I also learned to do sheet metal work back then.”

When he decided he’d had enough, he took a break from drains and worked for eight years in the Waikato as a traffic policeman, only to return to drainage before moving to Manawatū. He also had his own plumbing business in Feilding for a while, a job he swapped for one at the Palmerston North gas department, which quickly made him a senior drainage inspector, a job he held on to for 36 years.

A recent woodturned object made by Barry Cardiff.

He also worked at the Motunui gas-to-gasoline plant when it was under construction.

“Very long hours, so you only got a contract for a year.”

He took a break, and while on holiday in Auckland, he visited Manukau City Council.

“Their building stood out a bit and I was curious, so I paid a visit...”

Someone there asked if he’d been helped, and before he knew it he had a job. His next job was working on the sewage in Waitākere City.

“All the pipes were pushed through the hills hydraulically, all the way to the beaches throughout the district.”

At that time, all inspectors were sent back to school to learn the other job.

“That way, drainage inspectors could do building inspections and vice versa.”

With his sons based in or around Palmerston North, he eventually decided to move back to Manawatū and began looking for a house near a beach.

“I have always lived near water, and I gotta have a boat.”

Intricate woodturning.

When he was young, he built model airplanes. He still has the engine he built for a 1948 model airplane, an ED Comp Special 2cc. He has also built boats and collected engines.

He retired at 78 and turned to a longtime hobby: woodturning. He decided to invest time and money into an intensive course in Christchurch.

“There are only two places in the world where you can do that: Germany and here.”

“They had large 200-year-old ornamental lathes, from the UK. They had about 200 different fittings. These were made for kings and landed gentry at the time who could afford them, and they were beautifully made and were still going.”

He has a few of the spare bits in his collection.

The lathe Barry uses to create intricate patterns.

He has a variety of skills that allow him to build his own lathes or modify the ones he has. One he designed, with the help of YouTube, is designed to carve out the inside of a wooden spoon.

“A lathe can do the handle and the underside, but can’t do the hollowing out you need to make a spoon a spoon.”

For years he made bowls, until he ran out of people to give them to - though there are a few he will be holding on to, such as one made from the root of an Australian grass tree.

His biggest woodturning job was making several bongo drums.

“Someone wanted me to make 10 of them. I had to build a lathe just for that job. The person who wanted the drums supplied the wood. They were made from Macrocarpa and weighed 200 pounds each.”

The small trembleur, made out of one piece of wood.

He has an ornamental turning machine - and a cutter and angle grinder - that allows him to make intricate patterns on items, also with the help of Youtube. He had to make special structures so that he could keep a piece of wood steady while working on it.

He fixes old stationary engines and makes tools, such as a linister you can use to sand with.

Two trembleurs Barry Cardiff made.

His most delicate work will perhaps be a series of trembleurs, made out of one piece of white pine.

“I found it on the internet one night. A French woodturning school, very expensive to attend, had its students making them, and I thought I could do that too.”

He had to modify his lathe with homemade gadgets to hold the delicate piece steady as he was forming it.

“I made several, in different sizes, all carefully and securely wrapped while in storage.”

Thanks to his metalworking skills, he was able to build a replica of a vintage Austin car. It sits in a section of his shed that is full of old engines, some needing a bit of work.

“I have been collecting old stationary engines for 25 years.”

Image 1 of 14: A copper attachment for an ornamental lathe.

Barry Cardiff will not be running out of things to do any time soon.