When faced with a design problem, I've found that my best ideas are never the ones that just worked themselves out. Instead, they tend to pounce on me while my mind is somewhere else entirely. In college, a design solution for a studio project came to me as I was drifting to sleep. It was just enough to make me get out of the warmth (it was cold where I went to college) and sketch it down.
This May I was in the throes of finishing up my toolbox and thinking about my table project. Table is a loose term. It really just needs to be something that employs table construction. As I do on occasion, I went down one day to play one of the pianos that the Piano Technology students practice on. Seven lines into Maple Leaf Rag, I realized that I should make a piano bench. It makes sense with my love for piano, would satisfy a number of table requirements, and was chock full of new operations and techniques. It took several sketches and conversations before I came up with the design of the stool in the photo to the left but that initial idea was the necessary spark of inspiration that I was craving.
Getting approval to make a piano stool became its own challenge. Apparently, putting the weight of a human on a small set of wooden threads just doesn't seem safe to some people. I fought that notion, figuring if the thing breaks, at least we'll know. Though my most wizard-like teacher adamantly opposed the wooden screw initially, he eventually became quite involved and enthusiastic (for him at least) in the engineering and design of the project. A great find at a New Hampshire tool sale supplied the wooden screw and nut, which were part of a large wooden clamp. Using one gigantic board of stunning red birch and plenty of instruction from my teachers, I built the petite and elegant piano stool which is now on display at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Here are a few photos from the building process.
This May I was in the throes of finishing up my toolbox and thinking about my table project. Table is a loose term. It really just needs to be something that employs table construction. As I do on occasion, I went down one day to play one of the pianos that the Piano Technology students practice on. Seven lines into Maple Leaf Rag, I realized that I should make a piano bench. It makes sense with my love for piano, would satisfy a number of table requirements, and was chock full of new operations and techniques. It took several sketches and conversations before I came up with the design of the stool in the photo to the left but that initial idea was the necessary spark of inspiration that I was craving.
Getting approval to make a piano stool became its own challenge. Apparently, putting the weight of a human on a small set of wooden threads just doesn't seem safe to some people. I fought that notion, figuring if the thing breaks, at least we'll know. Though my most wizard-like teacher adamantly opposed the wooden screw initially, he eventually became quite involved and enthusiastic (for him at least) in the engineering and design of the project. A great find at a New Hampshire tool sale supplied the wooden screw and nut, which were part of a large wooden clamp. Using one gigantic board of stunning red birch and plenty of instruction from my teachers, I built the petite and elegant piano stool which is now on display at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Here are a few photos from the building process.