Benchtime is usually pretty sedentary, right? We sit. We maybe raise or lower our seat to get a better angle on certain tasks (I frequently lower my chair as far as it’ll go when I’m dealing with landing gear alignment fun-time).
Well, last night, I found that wasn’t working.
I’ve been taking my sweet time with Trumpeter’s SBD-5 Dauntless, and last night it was time to mask off the recently-painted walkways so I can get on with the rest of the painting.
Sitting while trying to get my hands into position without bumping the horizontal stabilizers and getting the tape lined up properly just wasn’t working.
So I stood up. That small change – standing, looming over the aircraft – made the taping a total breeze.
And it got me thinking about the other times I engage in weird bench maneuvers to tackle random tasks:
- Rigging. I will frequently tackle rigging of all kinds while standing (or sometimes straddling my chair in reverse).
- Buffing. If I’m using the Dremel and a buffing wheel, I’ll usually wander away from the bench while I do. Those cloth wheels fling shit everywhere.
- Masking prop tips. I don’t know why, but I do this better on my feet.
- Fill-and-Dump Intake Painting. This necessitates standing, since I use a vise on the farthest end of my bench to hold the intakes.
What about you? Any weird bench maneuvers or habits you find yourself doing?
Not counting crawling around on the floor, swearing and looking for that tiny little part that you can swear fell right by your fucking foot but now it’s apparently vanished into another dimension…
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