Shed Clearance After 39 Years: Why a seventy-four-year-old former RAAF engine fitter is letting his handmade wind spinners go for a fraction of their value.

In Rosewood, fifteen minutes from RAAF Base Amberley, Nev Barclay has spent thirty-nine years building one thing in his tin shed: a little biplane wind spinner with a wooden propeller and a goggled pilot in a red scarf.

Before Christmas, that comes to an end. The block is sold. The shed has to be empty. What’s left are 64 finished Flying Ace spinners, and one decision Nev made that most makers in his position never would.

Half past five in Rosewood, before the kookaburras

On the wall hang the spanners from his years at Amberley, sorted by size. On the bench: small tins of red, white, blue and olive green, and a wooden propeller in the vice. By eleven the tin roof ticks in the sun.

Nev flicks the propeller with one finger and tilts his head. “It’s not the shed I’ll miss,” he says, without looking up. “It’s the sound. Half five in the morning, before the kookaburras start, you spin a prop and you hear if it’s right. You lose that, you don’t get it back.”

Why most wind spinners are in the bin by next spring

Most garden spinners sold in Australia are made to be thrown away. The plastic fades in one summer and cracks in the next. The blades are pressed, not balanced, so they wobble, squeak and rattle loose in the first big storm.

Nev saw this coming a long way off. For thirty-four years he worked on jet engines at Amberley, most of them on the F-111s. There, a part that doesn’t run true doesn’t just get noisy. “Anything that’s out of balance,” he says, “shakes itself to pieces in the end. A jet engine or a garden toy. Same rule.”

A tribute to his father’s Tiger Moth

Nev’s father Arthur taught young pilots on Tiger Moths during the war. As a boy, Nev sat in the front seat of one with him. He never forgot the colours: olive green, a red nose, and the red, white and blue roundel the RAAF flew under before the kangaroo came in.

In 1987 Nev built a little biplane for his grandson’s backyard, with those same roundels and a cheeky pilot in goggles and a red scarf. Then the neighbours wanted one, then half of Rosewood. For years, his table at the markets was empty before ten.

Built the way an engine fitter builds things

• “The Balanced Prop.” Nev balances every wooden propeller by hand until it spins true. That’s why it turns in a light breeze of around six kilometres an hour, and why it hums instead of rattling.
• “The Timber Prop.” A real wooden propeller with a brass hub, not plastic. It weathers like an old garden bench instead of fading and cracking.
• “The Tiger Moth Roundels.” Painted in the old RAAF colours from before 1956: red, white and blue on an olive-green plane, with a bright red nose.
• “The Two-Minute Stake.” A slim metal stake pushes straight into a lawn, a garden bed or a big pot. No drilling, no tools, no fixing to the fence.

The steady hands that kept jets in the air

The arthritis in both hands has been closing in for three winters. “The heavy work’s still fine,” he says, opening and closing his right hand. “But painting a roundel needs a steady hand, and mine shakes now. Some mornings I can’t do up my own buttons.”

Five acres need two good hands as well. In August Nev and his wife Joan sold the block. In January they move to a small unit in Hervey Bay, near their daughter. There’s no shed there. Nev says it calmly, like a man who has made his peace.

“Some of them have been spinning since 1987”

“That’s the whole point,” Nev says. “Somewhere a kid looks up and asks what that plane is. And somebody tells him about the Tiger Moth.”

What Flying Ace owners say about Nev’s work

• ★★★★★

  Bought ours at the Rosewood markets years ago. It has been through two big storms and plenty of summers. The paint has faded a bit, the way an old ute does, and it still spins every afternoon when the breeze comes in.

  Kerry D. · Ipswich QLD
• ★★★★★

  Got one for Dad’s eightieth. He was in the air force too. The first thing he did was check the roundels. Then he went quiet and said, “That’s the right one.” It’s next to his bird bath now.

  Michelle R. · Toowoomba QLD
• ★★★★★

  Our grandson calls it “Pop’s plane” and runs out to check on it every time he visits. It turns in the slightest breeze and it’s quiet, which I didn’t expect.

  Ross H. · Wagga Wagga NSW

64 spinners, and then the shed is cleared

Nev has started packing his old tools into crates for his grandson Lachie. Everything else stays behind with the shed.

What’s left stands on the shelf along the back wall: 64 Flying Ace spinners, finished and ready to go. When they’re posted, the listing comes down. There won’t be another run.

“I want them out in the wind, not on a shelf”

Nev has priced the last ones well below what a handmade piece like this usually sells for. “I could charge double,” he says. “Some of them would end up on a collector’s shelf if I did. That’s not what they’re for. I want them out in the wind. In real backyards. Where somebody sits on the verandah after a hot day and watches one turn.”

The online shop was Lachie’s idea, after three Saturdays in a row when the market table was empty by ten. Nev still doesn’t own a smartphone. Lachie packs the orders on weekends. Nev writes his initials on every one.

Whoever gets one of these last spinners is keeping a bit of Rosewood flying.

Questions people ask before ordering

More from people who have one spinning

• ★★★★★

  My husband was a mechanic all his life. When it arrived, he turned it over, spun the prop and listened. Then he said, “Whoever made this knew what he was doing.” From him, that’s a medal.

  Lorraine G. · Bendigo VIC
• ★★★★★

  It came well packed, with the initials on the wing just like the article said. Took two minutes to put in the garden bed. The neighbours have already asked where it’s from.

  Darren S. · Mackay QLD
• ★★★★★

  I lost my husband last year. He loved anything with wings. I put the Flying Ace where his chair used to be in the garden. When the breeze picks up, I go out and watch it. Thank you, Nev.

  Patricia L. · Hervey Bay QLD