Ted’s essays

cleared the workbench… again

In the never-ending battle for clear horizontal spaces, I lose more often than I win.

I still have not fully unpacked from our five-day adventure north to a basic long-range rifleman course. But time did not stand still for me.

The PatchWorks business sold. I had to get new designs created and patches produced right away, or forever hold my peace.

Then the local practical pistol match got all that gear out, and added to my collection needing post-match servicing.

My workbench was getting real ugly. It gets that way sometimes, and as often happens, “More Shelves” is the answer.

Unfortunately, the workbench I use for creating shelves was covered with STUFF needing put away.

I shifted it here and there, worked on sawhorses and found room to make more room.

Among my challenges has been the fact The Beast is at The Wrench getting some work done On Darby Time… much the opposite of BIG CITY TIME.

As it turns out, this particular shelf will work fine if all the boards are 4-feet long. My local hardware/lumber store happily obliged.

Shelves are ON.

While the new shelves took on a nice burden, a new-to-my-shop magnifying lamp needed a special place – and of course got one. The lamp and shelf displaced a handful of odds and ends that had been tacked up on that upright space… looking tacky, they were.


An interesting solution to the problem of way-too-much power cord to get from the lamp to the socket a few inches away is this cord shelf under the lamp shelf.

I could have cut the cord short and installed a new plug. However, experience tells me that two days after I have done that, the lamp will need to move four feet from the outlet.

While I was playing with power cords, I took a few minutes to tidy-up the two that run to the upper shelf.

I’m happy with the cleaner look and have already taken a shine to this new lamp.

The other odds and ends all got tucked into their new homes, giving me this glorious moment in time where I have a clear, clean ready-to-work workbench.

I think it is time for me to quit posting on my websites and go mess up the bench.