Wood’n Bits Workshop

A rearrangement of my shop gave me some more space but also created some dark areas as machines were moved to areas that were less than optimally lighted.  As a result, one of the things I’ve been doing lately is hanging flourescent fixtures, lots of flourescent fixtures.

I love ‘em and I now have lots of light, pure, white – everywhere light.  Most times this is a good thing  but there are times when it can work against you.  Those times are when you’re trying to see scratches, trying to look at tool edges, when you’re sharpening a saw, and when you’re evaluating finishes.

These tasks require light that illuminates in a directed and generally oblique direction.   For that purpose I’ve always had what I refer to as a “shadow lamp.”  I’m sure a photographer could correct my naming convention but I call it that as what I really want to do with it is create “shadows” cast by imperfections.  By aiming the light across the surfaces in questions, those little problem areas become visible.

My light is one of the simple, clamp-on lights one can buy in any hardware store.  It’s connected to a long extension cord that lets me take it anywhere I need it in my shop.  I keep it plugged in so that I don’t have to work hard to get this tool working for me.  I think this is the key as if you’ve got to set it up, you’ll ‘decide’ that you can see those flaws without a light.

I did find that sometimes I wanted to place the light over some work while I worked.  I threw together a simple stand (just a pole with a foot that can be clamped to a table) that I use for that purpose.  Note that I use a clamp to hold it to the bench and, if I need the lamp to hang over the work, I use another clamp to hold a stick to the pole from which to hang the light.  This allows me to adjust height and overhang easily in seconds.  Not fancy but very functional.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

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Tags: Techniques

This entry was posted by Larry on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 7:09 am and is filed under Tools, Woodworking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.