A box workstation for painting: design process and bodging carpentry

A box workstation for painting: design process and bodging carpentry

This is an article about what I did, in the hope that some of it may be useful to you, but it's not an article meant to tell you what to do. It's meant as an encouragement for you to think logically about problem solving, and to think sensibly through a project to end up with something that serves your needs well, but has not cost you a fortune in money or time. The aim is to get the job done, and then get back to your painting and gaming. The project here is to build a box for paints and equipment, but most of its principles will be equally applicable to any other project in wood, such as gaming tables and scenery.

Throughout the article I'll use the format of picture first, followed by explanatory text.



Here's my bedroom windowsill. Not pretty. Being a man of many interests, I paint miniatures irregularly, sometimes leaving off for many months at a time. When I do paint, I find there is no substitute for daylight, so I paint here, sitting side on to the windowsill or slightly angled away from it. When it gets dark, I move my paints onto my desk a few feet away where I have a very bright daylight bulb in an angle-poise lamp. Now I find that my biggest enemy when painting, is dust - a particular problem in a bedroom or anywhere where there are soft furnishings and carpets. So two lumps of manky old t-shirt cover the paints in between sessions. These have to be removed carefully and placed dust side down onto the bed, then replaced dust side up - a simple enough system you would think, until they get "tidied" by the wife or played with by the dog. Let's see what's underneath:



Ta da! My paints sit on a plastic tray, which is a drip tray for a long planting trough, available from garden centres. It does the job well, apart from the fact that being pre-made, it does not use the space efficiently. One is too small, two would not fit. So it's from these two observations - the dust cover problem and the inadequate size if the tray, that the project is conceived. The first thing is to measure (measure twice, cut once), a rectangle which will make the most of the whole windowsill space.



It's important to think about which measurements are the ones of primary importance to the design - it's a make it up as you build it design, rather than a drawn out on paper design, but the principles are the same: what is essential, then what depends upon that. Here it is the external measurement of the box, so that it fits the windowsill, but the internal height of the box, so that it will fit the tallest object I want to store. Here, I have to make a sacrifice. The tallest object is in fact my jam jar (which has a bit of wire wound round the top with two u-shaped bits like row locks on a boat for suspending brushes - more often used for laying brushes across.) But that's going to make my box rather ludicrously deep. The next highest object is a superglue bottle which has a long narrow neck supposedly for precision delivery of the gluey blob. So I base the internal height upon that. The water jar is emptied between sessions anyway, so can lay down when the box is closed, and in the meantime I can look out for a more squat jar. (Ah ha, an excuse to buy something yummy.) The superglue really does not want to be left lying down, as that "precision" spout also goes solid if glue is left in it.

A point about sensible, personalised (rather than flock following) design: Elsewhere, you'll see commercially produced and home manufactured "paint stations", which tend to be characterised by sides sloping to a raised shelf at the back. One is praised by a reviewer for the cut out triangles in its sides, which make it easy, apparently, for him to carry. Icould cut triangular sides for my box, and make a lid which fits it, but I decide that I simply don't need that feature. My windowsill is not much higher from the floor than the seat of my chair, I sit side on to the paints, not facing it (my knees could not go through the wall, and the light would be coming from behind the mini that I'm painting.) I tend to raise the figure to just in front of my face to view it through magnifying glasses, and the more I raise it, the less of a stiff neck I get. So I don't need to paint in a box, it does not need to be sloped. And, as my desk is only three feet from my windowsill, I think I can survive without carrying handles!



So it's down to the shed. Now I should say that I'm rather proud of my carpentry shed. If you've ever watched those American programmes with titles like "Hank's Woodshop" you'll see that Hank, has in his "back yard" something which in England we'd tend to call "A factory" with enough high tech machinery to warrant its own nuclear power station. My shed is a 6'' x 8' jobbie, with no mains power. In it I have a traditional workbench, which cost me an astonishingly reasonable £100 three years ago. A dedicated shed was a treat, which took me many years to earn, and I'm aware that if you're a spotty teenager reading this, you may not have anything comparable. Don't worry - almost everything I know about bodging carpentry has been learnt over the years by trial and error, working on the kitchen table (there are some good grooves in it, and in the chairs, to prove it.) Buy good quality tools, as and when you can, most tools mentioned in this project will last you a lifetime. And if you are Hank reading this, you won't care.

Do notice from the photo, a past design decision, of which I am rather proud: The bench is affixed to the shed wall, by two bolts which come through from the outside, and is held there by two wing nuts (nuts which you can undo easily with just your fingers.) That's because the most important thing when you are working with wood, is to be able to hold it completely firmly. However, there are times when I need to cut a long plank, so need to move the bench to one or other end of the shed or into the middle so that a plank can stick out of the door. It takes just a few seconds to clamp or release the bench.




There you go see, away from the wall. OK, I really am overly proud of this feature of my shed and bench. I'll get some therapy. Back to the subject in hand:



Enter one extraordinarily cracked, warped, and generally rubbish bit of timber. I bought a dozen 2.4m planks from Wickes for a large scale art project. Couldn't fit them in my car, so had to pay the criminal delivery charge. The troglodyte who picked and brought them noticed that two, were completely warped and cracked so "threw in" two more. The fact that most of the others were also badly warped had escaped him. But Muggins took delivery and after waging war with the other warped ones, was too tight to throw the cracked warped ones where they belonged - onto the bonfire. Now they have discovered a purpose against all odds - for use in a bodged paint box and this wonderful article. With enough perseverance, tight-fistedness and bloody-mindedness, it is possible to work with timber this bad.



The internal height of the box has not been forgotten. The planks are about 12cm wide, and I needed 11cm. There's no need (thankfully) to cut down their width, because 11cm was a minimum to accommodate superglue bottles, not a maximum. Here's the two of the four side pieces cut, and standing to show you just how bad that warp is. Now, any carpentry teacher would tell you to chuck that timber away. Slightly warped timber can be planed to correct it, but this is warped, cracked and twisted (warped across two axes.) But, watch for some magic:


That's the same two pieces, the one on the left has been turned over, so that its concave face is touching its partner rather than its convex face and suddenly, the gap is one we can live with. And yes, this is the worst of the four corners, the prospective joint at the other end of the plank which I turned is no worse than before.



Now then. Here's a nice looking bit of man kit. When you fix two pieces of timber using a screw, you are supposed to: mark and bradawl; drill a pilot hole through both pieces; then sometimes drill a screw hole, checking your depths carefully; then separate the two in order to drill a clearance hole though the outer piece; then drill a countersink; then realign them perfectly; glue, and screw. The paint box is NOT that sort of a project! Enter these fellows. They are supposed to drill a hole through both pieces at once, which tapers in diameter, so that the part of the hole which goes through the outer piece is wide enough for the screw to go through without splitting it, while the part of the hole which is in the receiving piece is narrow enough for the screw to bite. The black bits are a built in countersinking tool and locking ring, intended to make the countersink and get the depth exactly right all in the same movement. I bought them a couple of years ago for ten quid (including P&P) on ebay. Fantastic in theory. In practice... they're just not engineered finely enough. Two of them are actually the same size, and all but the smallest are too large for any job I've done in that time. I only use the smallest and its locking ring, adjusted by the tiny allen key, does not lock - you can spend more time fiddling with the allen key trying to make it lock than you would have done changing your drill bit three times. Nonetheless, even without the depth stop and countersinking, I use it for this job:



Now the big black and yellow thingy is a sash clamp, so called because they were originally used by joiners to assemble sash windows (don't lose sleep if you don't know what those are.) Sash clamps, and the other clamps you'll see in the pictures are your best friends. Buy them when you need them, they will set you back a little, but good quality ones will last a lifetime, and every time you use them, a little smile of self-satisfaction will creep over you. Guaranteed. These ones with plastic parts are not particularly high quality, but unfortunately all that seem to be available locally. I bought two, three years ago, one broke and was returned, one has a sticky ratchet, but they've otherwise lasted since then. Go on, if you don't have them, buy sash clamps (toss your hair as you do so... because you're worth it.)



Now here's the beauty of the clamps and the tapering drill bit. Apply the wood glue, clamp in position (we know there's warp and twist, but get it as good as we can,) mark the holes with a bradawl, drill them, countersink them (with a proper countersinking bit), then drive home the screws. No messing about with having to re-align the drilled holes. I could use the same sash clamp on the other end, but I have a second (because I'm worth it). The bench is in the middle of the shed to allow me to work all round (the clamps stick out a lot.) Leaving the clamps in place (not essential, but might as well) leave it overnight for the glue to set properly.



Now, what do we have here then? A piece of medium density fibreboard (MDF) found against the wall of the shed, and... yup, it's a bit warped. Can't blame anyone else this time, it's warped because it's stored in an unheated shed and has been leaning against a wall instead of laying flat. But, it's big enough, and its flexible enough to go flatish if I screw and glue it, and make it the bottom of the box:



Laying the box on the sheet, and matching one corner to the sides and end of the sheet (furthest away out of shot), I draw carefully around the other two sides. (Look for the pencil line in the image.) It's not essential to use a Barbie pencil, but if you are a father of a daughter who has gone past her Barbie phase, you will empathise with the experience of all other pencils in the house now being AWOL.



I do have a rechargeable circular saw, but for this job it's really not worth getting it out. A plane saw (that's the proper name for an ordinary saw) is fine for MDF, which is easy to cut, and I find it more accurate. (I know, we're bodging, but it's accurate measuring (measure three times cut once) and cutting which is enabling us to get around the poor quality of the raw materials.) Sometimes, you just can't get your clamps in the correct places. Here, there's one, but any more are going to get in the way of the saw as I do that cut down the length of the board. A small child is absolutely ideal here - get her to sit on the wood, preferably keeping fingers out of the way if you want to remain on reasonable terms with her mother. If yours has grown up, or not been conceived yet, you may have to use whatever alternative weights you can. With enough clamps and weights, the cutting should be easy. But... notice that dust mask there looking at you like the eye of the cyclops. That's to remind you to always wear a dust mask when working with MDF. The horrid chemicals they use to stick the particles together do not belong in your lungs. Deciding not to wear a dust mask does not make you brave or manly, it makes you a cretin.



The bottom is glued and screwed. I'm not wasting time here. They're smaller, thinner screws. I poke a hole in the MDF with my bradawl and drive the screws straight through into the planks. No pilot holes and no countersinking. To countersink would risk the screw heads going right through the MDF. I still have to drive them flush though, with my rechargeable screw driver and manly might, otherwise the screw heads will end up scratching the paintwork on the windowsill.



... and manly might has let me down, as it so often has before. Seven of the ten screws went home nicely, but three remain proud of the surface, probably because they've hit a knot or dense part of the cheap timber. Enter the UCT (Universal Correcting Tool). This was my father's UCT, and I think his father's before him. It's been doing its job for decades, and with a little enthusiastic application, the three proud screws are swiftly humbled. (Warning: Only use the UCT on inanimate annoyances, if you wish to remain at liberty.)



Et voila! We appear to have constructed a hobbit's coffin. (He'd have to be a thinish one.) Two pieces of plywood have been cut for the lid. I didn't have a single piece large enough. Plywood is much more rigid than MDF, and though it does not lie absolutely flat, it's pretty close and will certainly do the job of excluding dust.



Now for the finishing. The tools are a plane, a surform and a (very tatty) sanding pad. The plane is the supreme carpenter's hand tool, but before you consider buying one, you need to know that like a machete in the jungle, it is very quickly useless without the appropriate sharpening stone. With a plane, you need a sharpening stone, a box to hold it (which weirdly, you still have to make yourself,) and angle gauge and some oil, and the know how (for which I recommend Ultimate Woodworking Course by Nick Gibbs.) Oh.. and you need a different type of plane for the ends of pieces of timber! If you don't want to go there (and in the end I hardly used the plane at all in this project) use a surform. A surform is to a plane, what a lead pipe is to a G3 assault rifle. But... when your victim is clamped down to a bench, a lead pipe does the job. Here, very pleasantly, I discover that because my measuring and cutting has been fairly accurate (measure four times, cut once), there's very little to grind off. The MDF bottom is slightly smaller for most of the perimeter, and where it overhangs, the surform makes short work of it. The plank ends just get some sanding with the sanding pad - they're not completely flush, but we're bodging here, not making a Chippendale cabinet. What matters is to smooth off rough bits or splinters.



Let's see what we've got. This is the worst end. There's a gap along the left hand end and along the base. On the other end there's a very small gap, and along one side there's that horrible split. I could live with them, but I decide not to. I don't want air currents moving through the box, because they'll draw in dust.



Enter the bodger's other best friend... wood filler. There are loads of different types, but I'm just using what I have. The important tip here is, to buy small tubes of it. It comes in big tubes and in tubs and tins, but it's expensive and doesn't last long, so it is a false economy to buy twice as much for 150% of the price. Six months later, when you go for your wood filler, it will have gone off, and the capitalists will be laughing at you again. Work it into the gaps, leave it to dry.



While it's doing so, there's time for a little customisation. Now "paint stations" have holes for water pots, and holes for brushes. I don't need those, I lay no more than one or two paint bearing brushes across the top of my water jar (where I can't forget them and let them get ruined) and the rest, dry or damp, laying down. I never could understand that "store your brushes upright" instruction, it seems to me an invitation to make the brush go hard where it meets the ferrule. But, what might be useful is a shelf to lift my bottles to a height where I'm not going to have to fish too deeply for them. Knock me down with a feather, I find a piece of timber which is just the right height. And it's... almost... the right length. Actually, it's about 2mm too long to fit the box, which is much more of a nuisance than it being 1cm or more too long. It's very tricky to saw off just a small sliver from the end of a piece of timber. Can't have it all. I manage it, with some muttering, and pop it into place. It's not glued in, because there's no need. It may be adapted, perhaps with a little retaining ridge at the front, at a later date.



The wood filler is sanded off. It's then taken outside for a thorough brush down (dust mask on) before painting.



Remember what I said about buying small tubes of wood filler? The complete opposite is true of this stuff. This is "Trade Acrylic Primer Undercoat" and it's the cat's pyjamas. I bought this 5L bucket perhaps 5 years ago, it's half empty, but still hasn't dried out, gone off, or skinned over. "Trade" is sometimes a euphemism for low quality. Originally it was just used for paint. Trade paint was runny, but considered OK for "professional" painter/decorators who were skilled enough to work with it. "Non-drip" paint was the alternative, and aimed at the DIY market, not so runny and therefore supposedly more expensive to manufacture and much more expensive for DIY man to buy. Then came other "trade" quality products, which came to mean "cheap rubbish, but you can get away with it if you're good enough." Trade shed roofing felt is the worst example. It's wool and bitumen, so it rots in about 5 years. "Premium" (or whatever they choose to call it) is rot proof and will last at more than twice as long. You'd be a fool not to use it, when doing the arduous task of re-roofing a shed. But have a "tradesman" re-roof your shed, or buy a new shed, and you'll get "trade" felt unless you specifically demand the quality stuff. But... not so with "Trade Acrylic Primer Undercoat"! It primes, it undercoats, it goes on easy like a non-drip paint, smells nice, dries quite quickly, but not at all even in a half empty tub. And it gives a great base surface. I suspect it would even be perfectly good as a gesso for fine art applications (I dabble, and if I'm correct here I'm suggesting that it's as good as a product that's fifty times its price by volume.) But I digress in my enthusiasm for this wonder product.



I'm not going to paint the inside. No need, and I confess that I rather like that paint splattered patina that an art space acquires over the years. Pleased as I am with my carpentry shed, there's no space nor work surface without stuff heaped on it in the house, so the pieces of the lid cannot be painted at the same time as the box. I didn't bother to put wood filler over the screws.



Two coats of brilliant white gloss over the primer undercoat, and the job is completed. Evaluation: Took perhaps four or five hours work spread over several days to allow for drying. Cost... nothing. Yes, honestly, truly, Dungeon Master's honour, not a brass farthing was spent in making the box. It's true that I've lived in this house for 20 years, and tend to hoard half used tins of paint and warped cracked timber, but on this occasion (for the first time ever I think) the whole DIY task was accomplished without the credit card seeing the light of day. The little shelf works fine, the plastic drip tray still sits inside the box pending further review. I might add a central pillar if the lids ever start to sag. I could certainly add more internal customisation such as a shelf for brushes if I find I miss it when I get back to painting. I like the fact that I can put on just one of the lids and use it as a raised surface. When its on my desk, it will be high, but it may be that I can rest my elbows up on it to support the work. We'll see.



And there it is with the lid on. Take a look back at the first picture in this article if you wish to shout your hurrah hooray's at the spectacular before and after effect. Oh dear. I notice that the bed has not been made in the final picture. The French maid will have to be spanked again...