Have a lock on the door of your workshop, partly to keep small children from getting cut if they should come in without leave, and partly to prevent your work being interfered with in your absence and the edge-tools used for various domestic purposes by your feminine relatives, who might, in their innocence, mistake your best gouge for a tack-puller or the quarter-inch chisel for a screw-driver.
Of course you will have overalls and jumper or a work-man's apron made of denim, ticking, or some strong cloth. If you use an apron, have a pocket in it. A small slip of a pocket on the outside seam of your overalls above the right knee is also useful for holding a rule. When you have a long job of dirty work before you, a good way is to change your clothes for any "old duds" that you may have. This saves your clothes, and in warm weather is more comfortable and healthful than to wear overalls.
Fig. 37.
Your shop can be all fitted up for you by a carpenter, but it will be better, and better fun, to do it yourself. After the workshop itself is ready the first important thing is the work-bench.
The Work-Bench.—A very simple one (Fig. 37) will answer your purpose for a long time. When you become a pretty good workman and feel the need of something better (for a first-class bench with the best attachments is really a great help toward doing good work), you will still find this first simple affair very useful in some part of your shop.[14] There is no need of a bench being made of stock of exactly the dimensions given, so if you have a pile of boards and joists to draw from without buying, you can, of course, substitute other-sized pieces, provided you use stock heavy enough to make a firm bench. Heavier legs and top (front board) would be better, and in fact there is little danger of making a bench too solid.
Before beginning to work read carefully Marking, Square, Rule, Saw, in [Part V]., and look up any other references.
The design is for a small bench, 5' 10" long, 2' wide, and 2' 6" high. A larger one can be made on the same principle.[15]
You will require for stock: