How to Make Your Own Furniture

For lighting, nothing can beat daylight - and if that can't be arranged for, or if your shop must be used before and after daylight hours, the best substitute undoubtedly is the fluorescent light. It may cost more than an ordinary fixture but it will soon save the cost through smaller electricity bills.

However, just any kind of fluorescent lamps will not do  - especially in shop concerned with colors and finishing. The lamps must give the closest approach to daylight that can be had. This can be checked by looking at paint color cards, first in daylight then by the light of the lamps.  

The so-called "white" tube usually is much too pink, and the "daylight" tube much too blue. A combination of the two will give much better results - or at least the colors applied under such a light will look more natural in daylight.

To get good fluorescent distribution requires large lamps with long tubes (and two tubes to a fixture -  which, incidentally, reduces flicker), or two fixtures to a tool so that there is no shadow on one side. The 40-watt tubes, four feet long, are ideal in many cases, but sufficient of them must be used to give adequate lighting over all working spaces and machines, without shadows.

For a power drill or jigsaw a supplementary spotlight will be called for, focused on the work and usually attached to the machine itself. These can be the ordinary type of light bulb, but they should have a shade so that the light is concentrated on the work and does not get in the operator's eyes.

Continued....
From "How to Make Your Own Furniture"
By: Henry Lionel Williams

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