Gerrymandering

One component of my activities organizing and streamlining barn/shop space and function this year has been taking a page from the American political handbook, wherein electoral district has been reconfigured to render a permanent advantage.   This process is known as Gerrymandering in honor of it first practitioner, early 19th Century Boston politician Eldrige Gerry.  Ostensibly this practice has been attributed to partisan advantage, but in practice it has mostly been used to protect incumbents.  (Actually, only one Party has this strategy figured out and the other is just spinning on its thumb.)

In my case the spatial reorganization has been centered on the question, “How often did I use this particular tool or supply?”  If the answer was, “Not in several years,” the item(s) got moved from a place of relatively easy access into deep(er) storage.

Given the termination of workshop activities here, thus no longer needing classroom or dormitory space, I have plenty of available space to use for storage and archiving.  Lots of stuff has been relocated to reflect more current usage.

One instance of that was removing the leather, mother-of-pearl, and veneer inventories in the giant map case in my main shop workspace.  I had already reconfigured the top of the cabinet quite a while ago to serve as the location for processing beeswax and shellac wax, and the occasional batch of Mel’s Wax.  The leather inventory consumed four drawers, the MOP four drawers, and the special veneers three drawers.

The mother -of-pearl went into two large storage bins now located on the shelves now ringing the former classroom.  The specialty veneers went underneath a rolling worktable that is moved to wherever it is needed (I have a giant stash of walnut and cherry veneers up in the former dorm space), and the leather went into two giant storage bins and a large plastic trash can now relocated on top of that veneer stash.

Seriously, what in the work was I doing with a complete buffalo hide and a zebra skin rug?  And a big pile of elephant hide?

Who knows.

The map case was about 90% empty, available for a large inventory of different tools that had previously occupied a nearby cabinet.

Gerrymandering, my friends.  Gerrymandering.