I have been experiencing a great deal of discomfort in my back from welding in odd positions for long periods of time.  With this in mind I went shopping for some kind of adjustable height table.  I was fortunate to come across the junker shown above, which happened to come with a flat file cabinet to house my collection of collage materials.

Since I am a nerd I could not leave the original hand crank design alone.  I had plenty of motor/chain/sprocket stuff around so I hacked the table into an automated version.  The 1/2 steel top from my old table was then grafted onto the new one.

Oh yeah, as long as I was making a mess my clamps finally got a permanent home too.

A hapless tool chest was cut in half to make use of the space underneath, and I made a rack to hold all my welding wire on the left.  I changed out the wheels for much bigger ones since this photo was taken to raise the whole thing up just a bit more.  It all seemed like a giant waste of time while I was doing it, but I am now thrilled every time I sit down to work and can simply raise or lower my project to suit me rather than twist my sorry, creaky, aging body.

The flat file cabinet was a perfect fit underneath my existing wooden table.  Too perfect unfortunately.  One leg had to be removed so I could take a tiny slice out of it so that everything fit.  I have always stored my collage projects at home, often leading to tidal waves of magazine clippings.  I am hoping that by moving this stuff to the studio I can better integrate my images with my objects.  Not to mention keeping the home front cleaner.