WORKBENCH ACCESSORIES
WHEN you have made yourself this fine, big workbench you will find out very soon that there are a number of workbench accessories which will make it much more convenient and desirable.
The first thing that will be missed is a tool rack. With tools scattered all over the bench it is difficult to do good work. It means a waste of time and sometimes a waste of temper, while, if the tools are hanging right before one’s eyes in an orderly row, each one may be taken as it is needed, and replaced again when one is through, and the work will go on smoothly.
A single pine board six inches wide, one inch thick and sixteen feet long will make all the accessories one can want. It is better to procure a finished board from the planing mill. It will cost three or four cents a running foot—a total cost at the most of sixty-four cents.
For the tool rack cut from the board two fifty-six-inch lengths. Cut one of these in two lengthwise with a rip saw and plane the sawed edge smooth and square with the face or wide, flat side of the board. With a pencil and scale mark the positions on the centers of the holes shown in Fig. 1. Then when the centers have been determined, drill them according to the sizes indicated, with a bit and brace. The first three holes at the left are to hold bits; the next two, chisel and gouge, and the others are for screw-drivers. These latter four, after the holes are drilled, are made open clear to the edge of the rack by sawing out a section from the front. This makes it possible to take the tools out without lifting them entirely out of the rack. From the right-hand end mark off a distance of twelve inches. Then, from the end to this line, cut two grooves as shown in the drawing. The forward one is rounded out with a gouge to hold a pencil while the back one is square and flat, cut with a chisel, to hold either a twelve-inch scale or a folded two-foot rule. In the front edge of this piece, about six inches from the right-hand end is driven a nail to hold the claw hammer.
Diagrams of Work-bench Accessories.
The fifty-six-inch length which was not ripped in two is fitted at right angles to the back of this rack, lapping over the edge and flush with the top. It is nailed in position and two supporting brackets like Fig. 2 are fitted under each end of the rack for strength. When this is all fastened together, the whole rack is set up on top of the back pieces of the workbench and held in place by two cleats, three inches by eight which are screwed to both the back piece of the bench and the back piece of the rack.