The Pluralists: Where Design Inspiration Comes From

I build musical instruments, and so I care about good sound. I started to design and build my own speaker systems a number of years back. They have occasionally sold through local galleries. I started to build a set over a year ago that was based on a small full range driver. Small but with an incredible sound especially if supported by a subwoofer. This project is next on my list to complete.

The boxes are built using through dovetail joinery. A whole lot of different woods are used in their construction, so I came up with the name Pluralists.

The legsets are going to be something altogether different. I know a university graduate student who decided a couple of winters ago to make not a snowman, but a snow bear. She posted photos.

I was in the shop making small light fixtures at that time when I combined one of the fixtures with one of the Pluralist speaker boxes. I stood back to look at it and thought, snow bear.

The Molly Project: Completed But Not Finished

Sometime last year I decided that I wanted to build another pipe organ. Something happened to further reinvent that goal when I was recently approached to do a project for a friend who had started an indie folk band with her boyfriend.

Her name is Molly. She uses her background as a professional dancer to provide their music with percussion through dance. His name is Chase, and he is a music teacher with the public school system here in Minneapolis.

Molly approached me with a completely unique idea, and asked me what I thought about building a portable hollow box that could act as a combination dance floor and percussion device during their recording and performance sessions.

We talked over a lot of potential design criteria, and basically settled on the following.

1. The top had to be made of oak for its resonant qualities.
2. The box had to be as light as possible so that Molly could help move it from place to place.
3. The box had to reflect my standards of fine woodworking.
4. The box had to have an access hole for a microphone.

We discussed methods for maybe tuning the box like a drum. That led me to include two outer holes on the back that could be opened or closed with tuning slides held in place with turned knobs. They actually work too. The tone of the box becomes deeper and more resonant as the slides are opened.

I completed the project this past weekend. The band now has percussion provided through dance. The band is called THE SUMMER COATS, and they are writing and recording their own music. I am excited to hear their first songs, and in addition, equally excited for them as they plan their first tour in July.

This project for me is similar to building a pipe organ in that although my part of it is competed, the project itself is not finished. It now will do something that maybe hasn't been done in some way before. It will provide listeners with a unique musical experience. That is what is so great about building a functional object no matter what it is. That it will be used to do something. That something in this case is to make new music.

Panel Glue Press: An Argument for Calculated Risk

This blog is devoted to the professional aspects of design and engineering applied to the art of fine woodworking. I make that statement in its header. The entries are written to describe the evolution of engineering that I employ increasingly to design and build functional objects primarily from wood.

Today someone referenced a short story written years ago by Arthur C. Clark. You could say that it argues against the desire that a lot of us have to employ any advancement in technology to achieve better results as we engineers often do.

Clark's short story can be found here.

My last entry was about the time I just took from a client project to assemble a new panel glue press that promised to produce wide panels that came out of the press flat rather than more typically bowed. I took a risk by taking time from that client project to build something that promised a better result. Yet I had no experience with gluing panels with this method or tool. It could have worked against me, but tonight I found that it worked for me. The panel shown here in the glue press is perfectly flat across its width.

I am not afraid to attempt something new with risk involved when I think that the probability of that risk is worth the potential result gained by taking it. Failure has to be an option though because sometimes failure occurs. But I feel that an opportunity for success is often worth the risk taken if you do your homework, and trust yourself, your experience, and your skill set. It all came out well in this case.

Panel Glue Press: The Reluctant Project

I am currently in the middle of a rather interesting project that requires two rather wide panels produced from rather thin stock relative to their width. This project therefore justifies the acquisition of a panel glue press clamping system shown here in the photo. The experienced woodworker will know that wide panels are rather difficult to glue up without having them bow across their width due to uneven clamping pressure applied by typical bar clamps even when those clamps are alternated on both sides of the panel during the glue up process.

I call the project to build a panel glue press a reluctant project because I rushed the production of its large supporting frame through the workshop. I rushed it because even though it will support a client commissioned project, it impacts the timeline for that client commissioned project which in this case just luckily happened to be slightly ahead of schedule.

But if the client based project happens to go south as projects sometimes will, then I may need that extra margin which now is no longer available because I spent it on building the new panel glue press. I think that every woodworker I know who operates his or her organization within any sort of business model must often make workshop upgrades within the time allotted to client based projects without seriously impacting the timeline for those projects. This is often difficult to do.

I rushed through the panel glue press project to minimize the impact it had on an ongoing client based project even though it ultimately improves the quality outcome of that project. The glue press frame turned out well, but with minor flaws that could have been avoided if I had taken more time to complete it with greater care and patience.

I find it somewhat difficult to balance that tradeoff between making a workshop change to benefit a client based project against the time it takes to effect that change though in the end, I usually value a better design or build outcome at the expense of the client project timeline. Communication with the client is very important in this instance. Some people will understand, want a better outcome, and tolerate a minor delay. Some though will emphasize the importance of schedule despite the fact that their project has durable value.