When I ordered my HobbyZone setup, I received everything I ordered, plus two types of small complimentary brush racks. Now these were something I had never even thought of, but there they were and I naturally glued them together. And because I had them, I decided to start using one of them (the nicer of the two) too!
And I realy liked them; it kept the brushes off the table and away from implements such as knives, but also (sanding) dust and all other clutter that populates a hobbyists desk mid-project*.
But there was a problem with these handy little things; they only had room for two brushes, while I usually have about four on hand during painting (not counting drybrushes, glue brushes, messy trash brushes etc; just the good ones).
I overcame this by using one cut-out for two brushes, but this obviously was not ideal.
Also; I like to have everything on my desk in the same place, so I can reach for it blindly mid-work, and my water cup always wanders around the desk for some reason, sometimes ending up on the wrong side of my work area! (yes, this means I'm a south-paw, as evidenced by the pictures
).
So I came up with an idea some time ago; why not combine a larger capacity brush stand with a cup holder, which can also be stored in a slot in the HobbyZone rack?
And this weekend, that idea came to fruition. I went from a 3-dimensional concept drawing to precicely measured 1:1 templates to MDF-components in one afternoon.
I did most of the cutting with a table-saw and circular saw, but the slots and tabs, which were there for strength of the construction, were cut by hand, with a jigsaw.
However; no matter how precise the measurements and templates were, the manual sawing did result in some less precise cuts, which in turn led to the whole thing not being entirely square and it kind of shows. But hey; it's functional and the imperfections are not very obvious at first sight, so I'm satisfied. For now...
Here it is, in its intended spot on the table:
And here it is, when stored away:
For those who are wonderign: the brushes are stored in a seperate wooden box. It's an old GW brush box I won in a painting contest many, many years ago (2004?). (it still has the original bar of soap and piece of cloth in it, and even now, whenever I open the box and smell that soap, it brings a smile to my face
).
So yeah; there you have it; another add-on to my desk...
*
Don't let the pristine pictures I share here fool you; when I'm full tilt hobbying, my desk is as chaotic, messy and overflowing as anyone's.