IF you have a place where you can build a workshop you will find one described in Part III. If not, try to find a well-lighted shop, both on account of your eyes and your work; one that is dry, or your tools will rust and your work be injured ; and one that can be heated, for there will be no time you will wish to use it more than on cold, stormy days.

As a rule, an outbuilding is better than a basement or attic, other things being equal, because a basement is liable to be damp and dark, and an attic is bad about carrying materials and finished work up- and down-stairs. Noise in the top story of a house is usually more disturbing to the occupants than noise in the basement; but all these conditions vary in different places.

Have a lock on the door of your workshop, partly to keep small children from getting cut if they should come in without leave, and partly to prevent your work being interfered with in your absence and the edge-tools used for various domestic purposes by your feminine relatives, who might, in their innocence, mistake your best gouge for a tack-puller or the quarter-inch chisel for a screw-driver.

Of course you will have overalls and jumper or a workman's apron made of denim, ticking, or some strong cloth. If you use an apron, have a pocket in it. A small slip of a pocket on the outside seam of your overalls above the right knee is also useful for holding a rule. When you have a long job of dirty work before you, a good way is to change your clothes for any "old duds" that you may have. This saves your clothes, and in warm weather is more comfortable and healthful than to wear overalls.

Your shop can be all fitted up for you by a carpenter, but it will be better, and better fun, to do it yourself. After the workshop itself is ready the first important thing is the work-bench.

Chopping-Block

A good solid chopping-block is a great convenience, so watch for a chance to get a section of a tree, which you can often do when one is felled.

Straight-Edge

You should have at least one; two are very useful - one two or three feet long and another five or six feet long. Making them is simply a matter of skill in planing. When you can plane well enough make some yourself of well seasoned, straight-grained white pine or mahogany, or other wood which holds its shape well. Until you can do it accurately, however, get some good workman to make one, for a straight-edge that cannot be relied on is really worse than none at all. (See Straight-edge?)