I often have several small projects on the go at one time and usually the bottle neck in the process is drying glue or finishes. When I make a small wood carving, recently like little owls or pocket trucks and boats I screw a gimlet into the item and use the gimlet as a handle. When I hang the small projects to dry, all around the shop I and sometimes forget them until they are knocked down. After an embarrassingly long time I just made a proper rack, with hooks upon which those things can now dry.
This is a low tech solution, but aren't the low tech solutions often really good. I drilled five holes into a 24 inch board, threaded sash cord through the holes and tied them off.
Next I salvaged 5 six inch pieces of left over wire from the wiring job on the weekend and made hooks.
Finally I screwed the rack to the ceiling where it will be obvious but not in the way. Hanging from the rack drying right now is the kid sized canoe paddle I am making for my Grand daughter.
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| the paddle is 30 inches long and features Tova's favourite animal. |
I made the paddle from cedar which isn't very strong and since I needed to wood burn the owl into the paddle I killed two birds with one stone by reinforcing the the neck with ash and burning on the lighter wood.
This paddle will spend plenty of time wet so I glued the ash on with water proof glue and plan to give the paddle 4 or 5 coats of spar varnish.
As a foot note, when I made this paddle I used my random orbital sander for much of the shaping but my files and rasps did at least half of the work, if not more. Every shop should have a flat file with a safe side, if possible, and a round file too. Take the time to put handles on your files, it makes them much easier to use.
cheers, ianw
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