I have a number of what people would deride as scrap bits and pieces, which I use regularly. I have a wooden block with two pieces of strip wood at right angles along two edges. On the top surface I put temporary pieces of thick card. This along with a G clamp is very useful for holding metal sheet being drilled or right angles to be soldered etc. It can be turned upside down on a vice for soldering up. Yes it does get burned and cut, but is movable and it does mean that your bench takes less damage.
I also have a block of balsa wood,
which is for temporary lash-ups where I pin components together to allow hands free soldering. There are other small blocks of MDF, which I use regularly to support and prop things up in a temporary fashion. I also have a pair of helping hands which my dear wife bought me as a small present
, I do find them useful especially to hold a chassis during testing, while I run power through the motor.
I have made a wooden V block that fits into the vice for cutting and I have two vices, one (large) for really rough work and a (smaller) machined vice – looking a bit worse for wear around the edges, but it still has good mating surfaces.I also have the centre of the vice marked for reasons which will become evident as we go on. Sometimes I use the two vices together, which allows me to turn the small vice using the rotary base of the larger. It also gives extra height off the workbench, which can be useful sometimes. Nowadays you get some really lovely modellers vices that allow you to hold things at a multitude of angles. I really must get one sometime.
There are areas set aside for a couple of regularly used tools - saw, drill, etc and a set area for the soldering iron and flux and solder.These are all on my right hand side as I am right handed. Stops you having solder on one side and flux on the other with the work in between. I have a lamp and magnifier, something I regard as essential and cocktail sticks, as well as, little clamps (I think sold as heat sinks, crocodile clips would also do the same jobs)
I work with a towel on my lap, preferring that to wearing an apron. When I was a student at Art College I did silver work and our benches had a semicircle cut from them and a leather sheet draped across the cut out. This allowed you to rest your elbows as you were working and the leather caught anything that may fall on your lap. I have never in all the years managed to get around to making such a bench – shame on me, but I do use the towel. It is amazing how small items fall to the floor to get lost in the carpet without it, with consequent loss of modelling time.
I like music
and have found that useful to set a working mood. My friend Richard Chown who also has a good working habit told me that he has a system in that, even if he does not feel particularly like working on something, he still makes the effort to go into his workshop at his set aside time and starts on something. If after 20 minutes he does not feel like its working, then he accepts that, and goes and does something else instead. He reckons that most times he finds it is rarely he can’t get into ”the mood” within this time.
Allan
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