The Last Retort

Many years ago, when I built the current workshop I didn't really commit too many brain cells to the placement of the workbench once the build had been completed and it was ready to install.  I naturally thought, as you do, that in front of a South or East facing window would give oodles of natural light.

And it did! 

So much so that that there was far too much sunlight falling onto the bench surface and I almost needed dark anti-glare snow goggles to see anything. Within the hour it had been hoiked over to the other side of the 'shop where it now happily remains. The upshot of this epic removals episode (the bench is a bit 'heavy') was to ensure that I had enough artificial light to see what I was doing which for the most part was easy enough to sort out, but on some specific occasions shadows were created which caused difficulties. 

Standard twin fluorescent lights provide the 'shop lighting, though these 'ye oldy' fashioned tubes are no longer available in the DIY stores and have been replaced with LED equivalents that just slot into place in the original fitting. An old 4' tube is also mounted directly over the bench and gives a general pool of light over the top but it's not enough so some time ago I purchased a couple of these lamps from Axminster:

 These little jobbies are quite superb, having six LEDs within the housing and provide enough light for them to be used in an operating theatre.

But they're still not enough!

Cutting 'shovetails' is a specific job where a beam of light needs to be directed in front of the saw; the lights shown wouldn't provide such a beam so I was a bit stuffed, to put it mildly. I'd used all sorts of lights in the past to shine light on the saw blade with little success.  Then the little grey cells, or what's left of them, aligned and I suddenly remembered that just before I left a past life donkeys years ago, I happened, by the purest off chance😁, to 'acquire' a test tube holder and widget from one of the labs.

As last resort, I used a chrome steel bar from an old printer and fitted it to a heavy oak block onto which went the fully adjustable 'widget' to hold a rather excellent little clip on light from Ikea.

The light is now directed to exactly where it's need; it doesn't prevent me from cutting on the wrong side of the line (it has been known), but it helps.