[ A small label printer, about 4x4x6″, sits in an open drawer, with 4×6 labels stacked behind it. There’s a small space between the front of the printer, where the labels come out, & the front of the drawer. ]
(This was written on Monday but scheduled for Wednesday; who knows what’ll happen between now & then!)
So I got this new shipping label printer a couple months back, & it’s really been making shipping go a LOT more smoothly. I stuck it in the top drawer of my printer file cabinet, & it fits just fine, but the labels, when they come out, kind of curl up against the front of the drawer & I have to keep an eye on them.
So I decided to fix that. With power tools.
[ The front of the drawer, once black, is now grey, with some of the colour sanded away. There’s a horizontal slot cut in the drawer, pretty unevenly. ]
It doesn’t look great, but it works, & it gave me something to think about other than the possibly-impending death of democracy. Anyway once I paint it it’ll look better.
I’ve been meaning to do this one for a while, really, but wanting to NOT be at the computer, doomscrolling, made this a perfect time to finally get round to it.
I’ve also been meaning to make a proper book stand for my herbal recipes book, & putting it off because all of the ‘easy’ DIY things I found wanted me to cut wood at an angle, which I do NOT have the tools to do in any useful manner. No, not even with a mitre block, look, I can mess up a straight line when I’ve got the guide clamped in eight places, I’m TALENTED is what.
I need a table saw.
In the meantime, I faked it with mostly-straight lines, using detailed plans that involved ‘bring the book outside & hold wood up against it until something works’.
[ My book of herbal recipes sits open on a table, outside, with my hand holding a couple of short lengths of wood along the bottom edge. ]
The finished product! Or at least ‘done enough to test’.
[ The back is made from a roughly sanded piece of scrap wood, maybe an inch wider than the book on each side but shorter than the book is tall. A thin length of wood has been screwed along the bottom for the book to rest on, & an even smaller length of wood is attached to the top front of the bottom piece to hold the book in place. ]
As I’d suspected would happen, the bit at the bottom wasn’t high enough to hold the book in on its own, so I added another bit for tilting purposes.
[ There’s now another small piece of wood running along the bottom front of the book stand, causing it to tilt backwards. ]
Of course, that bit of tilt was enough to make it fall over backwards, & while I could have left it that way & depended on the wall to hold it up, I knew better.
[ A larger piece of wood, maybe an inch by an inch & running most of the width of the stand, has been attached to the back piece, but just a bit up from the bottom, so that it supports the book stand at an angle. ]
Success! Here’s a side view so you can see how it all goes together.
[ Side cross section! The tall back piece tilts slightly to the left, held in place by the piece behind it; in front, a short horizontal piece sticks out at the bottom, with matching small lengths of wood on top & on the bottom at the outer edge. ]
& it even holds the book in place! Like it’s supposed to! Seriously, this is gonna make things a LOT easier.
[ My recipe book, in place in my work table, neatly held on the book stand. It’s not falling off or anything! ]
I finished the day up by adding a couple more boards to Tyrava’s inside walls. I’m gonna run out of denim insulation soon; the stuff had better come back into stock someday.
[ One section of one of Tyrava’s inside walls; short lengths of wood fastened horizontally cover it from the bottom to a little more than halfway up, & from behind the top piece, blue denim insulation is visible. ]
I also spent some time cleaning up out front — I brought in the show shelves & stuff, which are in DESPERATE need of another coat or two of linseed oil after spending the summer out in the sun, & I’ve been slowly picking up wood & sorting it out. Anything still big enough to be used goes into Tyrava, & everything else gets stacked up for firewood.
Little steps. Plus, bonus, I didn’t have to think about huge existential things for a couple hours!
