Workshop Renovations

My son, Garrett, has decided it's time to strike out on his own, purchased a house and December 1, 2001, vacated his basement room which shares a wall with my workshop. I, of course, made immediate plans to e–x–p–a–n–d the workshop and renovations began with the installation of a pocket door in the wall between the two rooms that could be closed when we needed to use his old room as a quest room.

During construction the poor old workshop suffered due to the need for working space. It didn't matter much that work benches were covered with "stuff" which made them unusable, because no one could get to them anyway because of even more "stuff" on the floor!

(left) View across the center island bench to main work bench.

(right) Reverse view to other side of shop.

I needed a spot with good lighting to take photo's of equipment or whatever and decided to make a light box.

A 4 lamp 2'x4' fluorescent fixture with full spectrum daylight lamps was attached to the wall with the two front corners suspended from the ceiling using 1/4" threaded rod and I immediately realized that the fixture was also an excellent storage shelf.

Sides were then added which were simply 1/4" MDF panels attached to the wall and table using tiny "L" brackets and a few screws into the side of the fixture.

White arborite was attached to the inside of the side panels and a third piece of arborite was installed down the back of the enclosure with about a 6" radius bend at the bottom onto, and then across to the front of, the table so as to have no back corner visible in photos.

A 2 lamp 1'x4' fluorescent fixture with full spectrum daylight lamps is also used in front of the light box to provide front lighting.

The box works fairly well, but images sometimes lack contrast with such even lighting and using a couple of reflector type lights may have been a better idea.