Sunday, June 04, 2017

Design-A-Chime

You may recall WAYYYYY back I made reference to the design contest at my work yet again. Once again, it's an artwork design contest using industrial supplies sourced from the company. Finally, just today, I've gotten to the completion point on my design. A little late.

I'll start off sharing the other four entrants' creations. The copper wire "love" picture framed sampler was first, and I thought it was a good look and a worthy entrant.

Next up is this very fancy lantern. Other than mine, I thought it was the nicest example.

Then there was... this... A miniature set of monkey bars made of PVC pipe painted gold. My vote for least practical. I guess you could re-purpose it as a rack of some kind, or a plant rack or mini trellis... I don't know.

Then there was this kid's activity board. Pretty good, but I think some better colors would improve the aesthetic quite a bit. Paint, we sell that.

So, here's what I came up with. It's actually a redesign of something I made up probably close to 20 years or so ago. I had seen large, tubular wind chimes, and around that time somehow my then job had come into several lengths of surplus copper pipe. How hard can it be??? I cut three different lengths of 1" diameter, and three of 1/2". A disc of aluminum with some holes drilled in it, a small disc for a clapper, and a flat diamond shaped plate for a wind sail. Easy, huh??? Well, it turns out there's a bit more to wind chime design than just that!!! First, the different lengths caused a weight differential, and that caused it to hang lopsided. Furthermore, just cutting random lengths didn't make for an especially melodic tone!!!

My redesign was fairly complete!!! I ditched the different diameters, and mounted them linear. The lengths were adjusted to provide a proper chord. I also put the hanging holes a a proper location (who knew there was such a thing???). I used one rectangle of wood to hang them from, and another to make a clapper, with a series of holes cut in them lining the tubes up. That is how it was set up when I entered it.

Once again, I think everyone who entered won some category. They asked me what I would like for winning, and some time back I had seen a car with a SpaceX license plate frame. We do a fair amount of business with them, so I asked if we could get in touch with them and see about getting me one. I don't know if they ever actually got in touch, or if they just checked out their catalog pages, but they said they had no luck getting me one. They asked if I wanted one of the T-shirts they have, so I picked out the design I liked. Just checking back now, and I see they NOW have the license plate frame I'd wanted in their store!!!

All this was around nine months back, so I don't remember exactly. I liked the way it looked, but there was an issue. The clapper has little cross section to catch the breeze. A redesign is still in order. I cut the clapper into segments, and put them at closer proximity to the ends of the tubes, mounted to a couple of pieces of plexiglass. I liked the was it looked, but it still needed a little tweaking. The holes were just a little too big, so I added in a couple of tabs on either side. That took care of it pretty well!!! Finally had it where I wanted it, so just today, I finally hung it up.