Sodding Easel

My old, portable tripod easel

I've built an easel! I've named it the Sodding Easel - for good reason.

The Old Set-up
 I've been painting on a delicate, watercolourist's easel for almost 7 years. It can't hold anything bigger than an A3 canvas with any stability so I've either had to paint on the floor or use a lot of press-stick. My other easels are even smaller, although I do have a broken children's chalk-board tripod that I stole from my little sister when she was about 8 years old (sorry Claire). It holds A2 canvasses but its front legs are about 10 cm long and it has no back leg.

I really needed a new, grown-up, studio easel.

Preparation
So I got all fired up and bought some wood. 4 pieces, 3m in length. 2 wide, 2 narrow) and hauled them off home for assembly. I had no design in mind, I figured I'd easily find something simple online. I wanted something that was easy to put together, strong, required no fiddly, patented thingamajigs and I wanted it to be easily upgradeable, so I can attach new parts and features as I need them.

Google showed me many lovely easels but not many free designs for adults (loads of free, simple plans for short people and kids though and lots of complicated, look-how-clever-I-am plans for master carpenters), and EVERYTHING was measured in inches and feet. :(

So I got bored of research, jotted down a basic H-frame shape and started measuring. No problem. Everything fit and there would be wood left over to give my poor stolen tripod a back leg. I had some big, old, rusty hinges that I covered in Q20 and worked loose with pliers and I had a bunch of screws, bolts and the drill-bits to match.

Then There Was Some Bad Language
Let me start by mentioning that I don't have my big g-clamps anymore. They were given away to some friends who ran a restaurant and needed clamps to hold up the bar. The patrons at the establishment in question were disinclined to hold up the bar in the traditional manner as they were a strangely sober lot - except for the wife-swapping police-man, but I digress.

My beautiful mitre kit was a gift from the wonderful Clive. It handles any angle, it clamps and measures, its blade is amazing but... ...I don't have a stable work bench or desk, or counter (except the one in the kitchen and Clive says I'm not allowed to drill into that, even to secure my precious mitre box). But I am brave and innovative: I sat on the floor, holding down the mitre box down with my feet. I am very glad that Clive did not take photos.

I did all my drilling the same way, on scrap planks on the floor, except the holes in the ends of 4 pieces; those I did with the wood firmly clenched between my knees, like a good girl practicing the penny-trick.

You'd think I'd have lost a finger by now.

Anyway, after all that sitting around in my own saw-dust, I finally got to put the thing together. I did a dry-run, just to make sure everything would fit before I made a mess with the glue. Turns out I didn't have enough screws. (Insert snide, crude comment here.)

I happened to be passing a hardware shop in Knysna so I bought screws there. Checked the sizes and everything. Perfect.

Bah! Tell me: who thought it would be a good idea to put little square holes on the tops of screws where the slots or stars are supposed to be? When I got home I popped one in a likely-looking hole and was rudely confronted with a neat little square hole and the fact that I had found the only packet of square screws I have ever seen. I certainly don't have a little square screw-driver (who does) and none of my alan keys fit either. I improvised with a little computer screw-driver I stole from Clive. (So, in theory, he helped me with the screwing, like a good husband. ;D )

I had to re-drill all the holes as the stupid square screws were also just a fraction larger than my original, sane screws. not a propper half mm bigger, just a re-drill-with-the-same-bit bigger.

It shouldn't have ever worked. I should have lost an eye, or a tooth. There really should have been blood, or at least a minor fracture.

Instead, here is my Sodding Easel, in all its wrong-alan-key-rusty-hinge-dust-on-everything glory. How smug am I feeling? :D

The Sodding Easel