Dona Isabel Maria brings us this ingenious camping shelf for the category Containment System.
She says:
Being an old hand at Canterbury Faire, I try to regularly make improvements to my camp schmutter. In this case, the specific purpose was to facilitate better event-long organisation by containing my feast gear and giving me a place to hang my hand towel. Although an unlikely pairing, it proved to be not uncommon in period artwork.
This shelf is not constructed using period techniques. It is very much in the “quick and dirty”, “prototype” and “let’s attach as many pieces to one another as we can to stop them getting lost between Faires” school of manufacture. Additionally, I have not seen any evidence of this type of shelving in period tent imagery. However, since I tend towards “playing house” rather than “being on campaign” at Faire, it seemed reasonable to add this shelf to my tent.
Materials & Equipment: dressed knotty pine in the desired width, jigsaw, coping saw, sandpaper & block, hand drill and drill press (thanks to Adrian for use of the latter).
The disassembled picture gives a pretty good idea of the pieces and how three of them are attached by hinges that allow it to be stored flat. The right side of the shelf sits on a block, and is held in place by a nail that just slots into a pre-drilled hole in both pieces. The back of the shelf sits on the shelf, so it can’t flop back past 90 degrees. The whole thing gets suspended from the top of my tent’s perimeter poles and lashed to them using calico tape.
Verdict: a bit tricky to put up (apologies for the near concussion Christian), but then really quite secure. Displaying my pewter was so helpful in maintaining track of my feast gear that my long lost St Jude spoon (not seen in over 4 years) also found its way home. I call that a success!
