Spokeshave rack

You know how it is. You go to make a heap of shavings and the entire bench gets full. But then there are all these tools banging around on the bench that you're always moving from place to place when you try to make room, or you just want to vacuum up the mess.

I'm about to do the final smoothing on parts for a cherry cabinet, and the bench will be six inches high with shavings. Here's a shot of some of those tools in the places they've shuffled around in for over a year now.

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For the moment the bench is clean, but as soon as the shavings start, those tools would be buried in dust and chips. Today I finally got fed up with constantly moving the spokeshaves out of the way. See that little rack over there:

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Now they're off the bench for good.

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This is some good hard ash cutoff from a guitar my nephew is asking me to build with him. It machines like glass on shearing cuts as from the table saw, Forstner bit, or router, so I tried my hand at the band saw. I got lazy and didn't change from the 1/2" blade, though, so the curves got a bit ragged in spots. Only I notice. I sanded it up as best I could.

The back is just birch plywood, but I added a little ash platform/plaque behind the Boggs shave so it would stand up. Otherwise it would droop backwards and look odd. I think the effect is rather spiffy. The angles of the 151 and 151R took a bit of design effort. I would prefer to have them sit upright, but that would have required cutting backwards-leaning hooks in the ash and placing the shaves farther from the wall for clearance when removing them, so I opted for straight vertical notches and forward-leaning shave bodies.

I thought I'd put an oil rub on it, but for now, here's the rack where it will probably spend its time. In a twist, I made the rack so it could be moved when needed. I might still mount it on the wall a few inches up, but I wanted to live with the shaves there for a while to see if that's going to be their permanent place.

Now about that hammer, brush, No. 80, No. 71, and a few marking gauges... Once those are up in holders, I'll only have my little pencil turtle and the bench dogs. I guess those could go somewhere, too...

Bob,

Nice little shave rack but first a question. Why the door hinge? BTW, I'm impressed with your shop appliances and how nicely made and neat they are.

ken

Looks like a very useful tool rack Bob, but the pencil turtle is what really caught my eye. I seem to spend as much time moving pencils around my bench as actually working wood and my window shelf firewood stick pencil holder does not translate well to my work bench. If you don't mind, I will cheerfully rob your rolling turtle idea and maybe add in my main marking knife to it's load :).

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Originally Posted by ken hatch

Bob,

Nice little shave rack but first a question. Why the door hinge? BTW, I'm impressed with your shop appliances and how nicely made and neat they are.

ken

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Ken, thank you for the compliment. It's not H. O. Studley around here but things do have a place to return to for the next time I want to know where they are. Without that locator function, I would constantly be spinning around looking for everything. I still do much more of that than I would prefer –– often for that hammer and that brush when they're submerged in shavings.

What a difference, though, from when we moved into this house 3-1/2 years ago, when everything started in a box somewhere and quickly ended up nowhere in particular –– until I built the French cleat wall and loaded it up month after month. Last year I made a nice till for my four hand planes, and I appreciate it every day. I keep all my planes fine-tuned and always over the bench, sharp, and ready to shave. The spokeshaves took about another year to find a home of their own. A couple of weeks ago I put all my spare irons into their own small box. Being able to literally reach out and grab the tool I want gives me no end of satisfaction.
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The heavy brass door hinge is one of three that holds my birch bench to the wall. You can see in the photo a three-layer laminated poplar and doug fir ledger board that holds the inner wings of the hinges. The 150-pound bench (2.25" x 25" x 6', with two vises, plus legs on locking hinges themselves) can hoist up against the wall when needed, via a 7:1 pulley set mounted near the ceiling. The rope then secures to a cleat under the front edge of the bench, which then rests on the hinges. Very stable, but I rarely draw the thing up.

I always figured that having one side effectively bolted to the wall would provide the necessary racking stability without having to go hog-wild building a beefy base, and it sure does that. The four legs are merely 1.5" x 2.5" poplar with leveling feet, but they only need to bear a vertical load, and they've easily done that for a decade. So I put my design and construction energies into hinges, bolts, pulleys, and nylon rope instead of making a sturdy 4" x 4" cross-section base. Yes, there are times when I'd like to be able to move entirely around the bench, but I make do.

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Originally Posted by David Eisenhauer

Looks like a very useful tool rack Bob, but the pencil turtle is what really caught my eye. I seem to spend as much time moving pencils around my bench as actually working wood and my window shelf firewood stick pencil holder does not translate well to my work bench. If you don't mind, I will cheerfully rob your rolling turtle idea and maybe add in my main marking knife to it's load :).

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David, I and the turtle would be honored. My son made it in middle school when he took wood shop. It is one of my most cherished artisan-made tools.