Fig. 85.
Now, while there are many of you who can afford either singly or by two or three clubbing together to fix up a shop in first-rate style, there are also many who cannot afford even so cheap a bench as that just described. What can you do in such a case? Only one thing—patch up a bench out of whatever old stuff you can find. Patched-up makeshifts are not to be recommended, except in case of necessity, but when it comes to the pinch, and a matter of having a bench made of whatever old materials you can find or having no bench at all, by all means make one of boxes and anything that can be worked in. For of course the boats, skis, squirrel-houses, and so on, must be made!
Fig. 86.
But, whatever you patch up, make it solid and strong. Do not try to work at a rickety, shackly apology for a bench that shakes and jumps and sidles all over the room every time you saw or pound or plane. You can probably get all you need in the way of boxes, packing-cases, and such material, at very little or no expense. The illustrations (Figs. 85 and 86) are merely suggestions, for you must use your own ingenuity, according to the materials you can find. Most experienced workmen have often been obliged to work at much worse benches than these, frequently with no bench at all.
Those of the boxes which you do not use whole you should take apart carefully (see Withdrawing Nails). This will add to your supply of nails. Use nails freely in fastening the boxes and boards together and to the wall or floor wherever allowable. A few screws will add much strength.
The bench shown in Fig. 86 calls for one good board for the front of the top.