AMONG the "higgledy-piggledy" workspaces in the old Dareton Men in a Shed building, a blind man picks up some sandpaper and starts smoothing out a wooden chair.

It's become a weekly ritual, and a habit Michael Fridey has long adored.

The 58-year-old lost most of his vision as a teenager after a push bike accident in Geelong, before glaucoma permanently blinded him in 1997.

Nowadays, he spends e...