Alright Woodworkers....I can't even post a poll to vote for the submissions for the month of May contest! Really, nobody is interested in winning $25 cash JUST for submitting one photo? I'll do this to encourage a vote. SINCE I did start this contest on May 3, I'll let it go until Saturday morning. IF no one else chooses to submit another photo, I do have one that I'll add just so we can have a poll.
In the hallway just past the front door under the staircase. The other side of the wall is the staircase to the basement workshop. Of course, the stud I had to take out had the doorbell wire attached....nothing's ever simple.
Let me see... "Creative Utilization of Space"... Hmmm... How about a creative way of storing a complete set of metallic planes. This cabinet was started by one of our early members (Ozzie-X aka Randy Osborne) who had an unique collection of every H.C. Marsh plane every made (22 bench planes, 14 block planes and 3 special planes made between 1895 and 1920 in Rockford, Illinois). Randy passed away from a brain tumor in 2010 after starting the design and fabricating some of the pieces of this cabinet, built from solid Walnut with curly Walnut veneers. I completed and assembled the cabinet after his death that included Walnut and Maple partitions between each plane that were held in vertical stations with rare earth magnets behind the veneers. This photo was made at the collection's debut at the 2001 National Meeting of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association in Louisville Kentucky where it garnered 2 Best in Show ribbons. Randy was a close friend and co-founder of the Western NC Woodworkers Association with me in 2006. After this exhibition, I returned the collection and cabinet to his widow.
It represents a most creative use of space to house an amazing collection and represents one of my proudest works. Here is a photo of the finished cabinet -- more can be found in my Gallery here.