Popular Woodworking 2006-02 № 153, страница 39

Popular Woodworking. Until then, here's what I ended up with.

Lighting the ends of the bench is important. Although it's counter-intuitive, the ability to turn off lights individually can help you better see what you need to see.

Over my bench I'm using an array of 13-watt, compact fluorescent bulbs in clamp work light fixtures (they have a color temperature of 3500K). These bulbs shed a nice white light, are inexpensive, and, most important, can be turned off individually or quickly repositioned, giving me shadows when and where I need them. I made sure to position lights over the ends of the bench where the finest work is done. You could substitute standard incandescent bulbs in similar fixtures or choose the much hotter and even brighter halogens, but these would need special fixtures. I found higher-color temperature compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs provided better illumination than lower-color CF bulbs with twice the wattage.

With the raking light switched on and the over-bench lights switched off, I can easily see when I need to sharpen my smooth plane.

I prefer the flexibility of multiple low wattage lights. I can't think of a better application for this approach than these "raking" lights. A strong light would blind you.

To produce a raking light, I'm using the same 13w, 3500K CF bulbs attached to the wall behind the left end of my bench. To keep from being blinded, I attached a photographic filter material (Cinegel #3000) called a "gel" (it looks like tracing paper) to the front of each fixture with binder clips to act as a diffuser (see photo at left). This material won't catch fire even in direct contact with the fluorescent bulb and is inexpensive.

An Inviting Shop

By far one of the coolest things about an ultimate hand tool shop is that with a few precautions, it can be made safe enough for a baby. Woodworking is such a solitary hobby, but it needn't be so. Without the noise and the dust of machinery, the shop can be a pleasant place to be. My shop has toys for my children (although they prefer tenon cheeks and plane shavings) and a comfortable place to sit down. The warm wood paneling didn't take long to install, but it really took away the harshness of the cinderblock walls. The ultimate shop is a

shop you want to be in. The ultimate shop is a shop where a child or grandchild, neighbor or spouse feels welcome. The ultimate shop is a shop in which woodworking can be shared.

Conclusion

I hope I haven't misled you though. There is no actual "ultimate" hand tool shop. Every shop is the result of several, often unfortunate, compromises. Nor should you consider the hand tool shop as necessarily separate from a modern shop. Instead, you can incorporate "ultimate" hand tool shop features in

THE DOMINY SHOP

The reconstructed Dominy Shop at Winter-thur offers a peek into a rural pre-industrial woodshop. The Dominy family produced a wide variety of items including furniture and clocks in their East Hampton, N.Y., home from the 1760s to the 1840s.

Although the "ultimate" hand tool shop I've described in this article was not based on this reconstruction, we can see many of the elements I discussed including the position of the workbenches, tool storage and even the color of the chest in the back corner. This unique reconstruction, (which was

the space created by pushing aside your 12" planer and 6" jointer.

But the one aspect of the ultimate hand tool shop that really earns its title is that it can fit into the end of a garage without moving your car, or just as easily into a spare bedroom, or garden shed, or patio. It's the ultimate workshop because it can allow someone in a big city to make something wonderful in a very small space.

The truly ultimate hand tool shop offers craftsmen not j ust a different way to work, but an opportunity to work. PW

based on 1940s sketches of the original shop and eyewitness accounts) validates our notions of period shops. The Dominy-made furniture and clocks included with the exhibit earn the shop its inclusion in any "ultimate" hand tool shop article.

Winterthur, formerly the estate of H.F. DuPont, is located in Delaware's Brandy-wine Valley. The museum, which includes a celebrated collection of American art and antique, is open year-round. For more information, call 800-448-3883 or visit winterthur.org. —AC

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