Here’s a dirty secret: If it weren’t for my job at a woodworking magazine, I’d be almost unemployable.
I cannot sit for more than a few hours at a time. During long meetings and dinner parties, I’ve been known to just stand up and rudely leave the room. My legs feel like involuntary muscles when that happens.
So thank goodness for our shop at Popular Woodworking Magazine and my shop at home. I can abandon whatever sit-down task I’m working on and sharpen my tools, cut some moulding or work on the project on my bench.
On Thursday I had – no exaggeration – more than 200 e-mails to catch up with. After slaving on that all morning at the office, I shut down all the programs on my computer and decided to build a prototype of a shelving unit I spied in a French book on handplanes (see the story here).
It was just what my head and hands needed. I had some dry yellow pine 2x12s in our rack that were fairly clear. And I got down to work. I had only enough pine to build a 50-1/2″-long version of the rack – the one I designed is more than 70″ long. And I screwed the prototype together – the real one will have through-tenons etc. But this prototype will tell me how well it holds and dispenses tools and if it looks ungainly.
I wiped on some finish on Friday morning and hung it before lunch in my shop at home. I’ll probably put my shop-reference books on top of the shelf today and hang my two miter saws on the pegs so my miter boxes will take up less space below the bench.
I do like the way it looks on the wall. But looks go only so far.
Edit: SketchUp drawing download added:
FrenchToolShelf.zip (23.01 KB)
— Christopher Schwarz
