We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
Drawings of early shops can
teach us and mislead us about pre-Industrial woodworking. But I don’t
want to get into a debate about how artists interpret or misinterpret a
scene. Please. Pretty please?
Instead, feast your eyes, peasants,
on that cool shelf and chisel rack behind the fine waistcoated
gentlemen in the foreground. That is the answer to the blank wall in my
shop at home. During my lunch hour (hour?) on Tuesday I dragged the
above engraving of a shop in the suburb of Saint-Antoine from the book
“Les Rabots” into SketchUp and drew and drew until I got something I liked.
It’s not exactly like the rack in the engraving, but it
will do nicely. The shelf on top is 10″ deep and the rack itself is
about 24″ high. I designed it so I could build it out of dimensional
stock – probably poplar – that I can paint.
Then I just have to ask Thomas Lie-Nielsen if I can borrow one of his old vests and I’ll be all set to go full-on French.
— Christopher Schwarz
More Shop Stuff
• Taunton’s “The Workshop Classics”
by Scott Landis and Jim Tolpin contain three of the best books on
workbenches, shops and toolboxes in a nice slipcovered case. Every
woodworker should own this set. (I think I have two.)
• I’ve written two book on workbenches. The 2007 “Workbenches” book has been one of our best-selling titles for three years and is in its third printing. It’s companion volume, “The Workbench Design Book” just came out in September.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
