Frame check: A-ok!

Construction of the frame makes progress, all the parts are ready now to be joined together to the complete frame. The Ivar-System poles form a very rigid A-shaped form, for receiving the bars. Here are the pics:

Here are the two A-shapes aligned on the floor, for a basic length check. Towards my feet, this A-frame holds the "white" keys, the one above the "black" keys in piano terms. To the left and right, the Ivar-system racks are visible. And yes, the calculator on the floor is a HP-48G!

 Left, the angled strut needs to be aligned flush with the spacing pieces.

Right, after cutting the spacer pieces.

 

Here, the top spacer pieces align perfectly flat with the angled strut!

The frame components set up roughly as complete frame. The A-sections were screwed&glued together at their spacer pieces, resulting in a rigid structure.

The end pieces get feet: a bevelled piece of Ivar-pole is glued&screwed to the bottom of each side rack.

This is the small end rack.

 Update from the garden shed: A second goat of line oil glazing was applied today. Now, the bars really shine in their golden brown colour!

With the coating still wet, the structure of the wood can clearly be seen. I hope that the second coating will dry to a smooth enough surface that the structure still can be seen when the coating is dry and hard.


Next up: Joining the frame together, in a way that allows for relatively easy deconstruction. A lower stabilizing strut must be added. And then, when the coating is dry, it's time for tuning! Stay tuned...;)

Frame construction, cont'd

Joining the pieces worked as expected, and so the insert spanning the whole width of the bass end was built. A first, much too long, marimba frame is today's result (tentative, only arranged the wood pieces).

 This is an upside down view on the deconstructed Ivar system. To the right, the smaller piece, to the left, the larger piece of the frame.

The pieces will be joined and reinforced by a piece of wood screwed onto the underside.

 Next, the poles to be used for the A-shaped bar rack were deconstructed from the original Ivar poles. It was kind of fun cutting freestyle with the jig saw through the cross sections ;).

 Here's the bass end with the poles aligned roughly as they should be.

...and here is the small end. Note the typical workshop arrangement of tools, instructions and debris on the working table ;).

If it looks like a Marimba, ..., well, not yet. But it looks promising; since it is a regal rack system, the height of the A-sections can be in principle be adjusted (with the limit of the lowest resonator bar).

Next up, I need to extract the precise alignment of the struts from Jim's instructions. The struts have a different width, so I need to take that into account. Stay tuned!

Frame part I

Just a short note on the first step towards the frame today. Jim's building instructions are written such that cost is minimized, and so he uses only planks and from this, the frame is constructed.

The widths necessary for the frame ends are very similar to those of the Ivar-shelf system of Ikea. So being somewhat impatient, I bought some shelf parts, and joined the together to form the frame.


Here are the pics.

The basic idea looks like this: Take a small and a wide part as the bass end, and a single wide part as the treble end.

 The width at the bass end is a bit wider than the shelf widths, so some scrap pieces were joined to create the proper distance.

 The shelf pieces were the joined with the distance pieces using wood pegs.

Here is the bass end of the marima. Took less than 2 hours to build this. Also, the shelf system will be used to hold the struts where the bars will reside.

So next up, the 2 A-shaped pieces where the bars will sit on will be constructed, again using Ivar-pieces. Stay tuned!