Day 207 / A Table-Top & Legs

I feel pretty good with my progress on the Harmonograph.  Last night I attached both sides of the table together with a 3ft. hinge and I’m happy to say that it seems pretty stable.  I think it’s going to work with all the weight I will soon be putting on this guy.

I also cut the legs to shape and fitted them to their own small plywood base.  The legs will ultimately be attached with three bolts with wing-nuts that will enable me to remove them later for compact storage.

For those of you not aware I am building a Harmonograph.  It’s a table-top that will be fitted with three swinging pendulums.  Two of the pendulums will attached to arms that come together to hold a pen or marker.  The third pendulum will be a drawing surface with a piece of paper on it.  When you swing all of them the pen will create geometric patterns on the paper.

This particular Harmonograph will have one extra facet of movement.  The drawing surface will actually be a record player that will spin via a small DC motor.  While the pen draws the continuous shapes created by the swing of the pendulum you can then introduce a rotation to the drawing surface (an idea that came from a fellow reader of the blog).  How this will affect the resulting drawing is still a bit of a mystery to me.  I’m looking forward to actually seeing it in action.

I’m planning on getting it running this weekend.  Hopefully it works!

On a separate subject, I wanted to inform those of you who may be local to the southern california area that my good friend Jeff is having his second annual Operation Art Gardens sale in Fullerton this Saturday.  
 
I interviewed Jeff and his wife Wendy about this at their first OAG sale on Day 028.  Jeff teaches video production to middle school and high school kids and the profits from this sale go directly into the video production program.  It really is amazing how much work he puts into it.  He travels all over place collecting other peoples succulents and cactus for donation.  Then he cuts them and nurses them back to health in order to sell at the next sale.  His backyard is full of literally hundreds of succulents and cactus.

So if you’re in the neighborhood and love these plants please come by and support the arts.  Thanks!

Saturday, October 2nd, 8am – 3pm

1005 Commonwealth Ave.

Fullerton, CA