As part of the general clean-up taking place over the past few months at the shop of the Book Arts Guild of Richmond Hill, I found that we did not have any good place to store our collection of composing sticks.
Following up on an example I saw at Rich Hopkins’ shop while I was as Monotype University 8, I decided to make a rack to hold them. It turned out that a stake someone had used for a road sign for the Rural Routes Studio Tour was actually a piece of nice wood, perhaps some form of mahogany, so I cut that up, edge-glued pieces together to get the widths I wanted, and made a rack. The wood has no stain, but is coated with clear semi-gloss lacquer, revealing a beautiful grain with a sheen that catches the light giving almost a 3D effect to the otherwise flat surfaces.
My first fitting two weeks ago revealed that the slots were too narrow for the composing sticks to fit, so I took the rack back home, widened the slots and refinished the freshly cut surfaces. One nice thing about not using stain is that it is possible to do this.
Tonight I installed it on the wall next to the hanging rack for all the line gauges and rulers and put all the composing sticks I could find onto it. The aluminum stick at the top has a particularly bulky knee lock and so cannot have another stick next to it on the working side. I may move it to the bottom slot.
Perhaps the next task is to arrange for a place to hang all the quoin keys, planers, and such.
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