Workshop Notes

Mark III

Final layout for the organ pipe design. The air goes through the narrow channel, see the diagram.
The airflow hits the movable edge and creates turbulance. This is where the sound is generated. The key to making the pipe work is the moveable edge. By allowing the edge to move it is possible to line it up with the centre of the airflow.
The movable edge is simply a fold of card which can slide up and down in the throat of the pipe. Once lined up the pipe makes a wonderful sound!

Pipe Pictures

In the previous entry I had an exploded view of a set of pipe parts. Out of interest, here is how the exploded view was done.
The whole pipe is made from foam board, a sandwich of two layers of paper around a foam core. Foam board is easy to pin together. The exploded model is pinned into place and a photo taken then the picture dropped into PhotoShop.
To finish, its just a case of tracing round the outside of the parts and filling in the background with white. A drop shadow finishes it off.

I had a bit more success today, I have a working conversion of the pipe with a nice fat sound! I'm now in the process of attaching bellows. - Photograph and, hopefully, sound file to follow.

The Great Pipe Mystery.

Here are the photographs I promised of the large pipes - The main tube is approx 700mm long. I've made it from 3mm thick foam board. With the mouth of the pipe constructed as shown it produces a very pleasing sound. I suspect that it might be possible to get a fuller sound by making the mouth parts out of thinner card. Perhaps 1.5mm rather than 3mm. This would mean twice the speed of airflow.

Having suceeded with this rough and ready prototype I went on to construct a neater model for use in the exhibition. I kept the length the same but made the width and depth slightly smaller - down from 100mm to 80mm. - The new pipe doesn't work at all! Curses! The workings of these pipes is a real mystery to me. There are so many variables it is hard to know where to start. In this case I'm working on a different project while I let it mull over in my mind. Pah.

Paper Cuts

I have received a copy of the poster for my exhibition in Kirby Steven. Very exciting! I'm currently working on models and display boards to go in the exhibition.
I had this crazy idea of making a giant set of pipes like the train whistle in the subscriber section. Just image a cardboard church organ pipe... I thought I could power it with a giant set of bellows then mount the whole thing on the wall for visitors to the exhibition to try out. As is often the case, it is harder than expected. I've made a large pipe from foam board (is that cheating?) and can make a satisfying tone by blowing across a hole in the pipe but can't get a fixed entrance to work... yet.
I'll take a couple of photographs and show you.
Thanks to the folks at Fold Gallery for the poster - it looks great!

New Shop

As I mentioned in an earlier entry I've been updating the shop. I've used the open source Zen Cart as the basis for the shop with two copies installed, one for the UK and one for the USA. It has been a steep learning curve but I've had loads of help from the Zen Cart community. (Thank you!)
I've changed the free downloads so that they are downloaded using the shop's download controller. Hopefully this will be easy for you to use and also allows me to encourage people to have a look round the website as they are downloading, after all, part of the purpose of the freebies is to encourage people to buy:-)
There may well be bad links and bugs in the new site, I'm still in the process of testing. If you do find any problems please let me know.

Keep your sweets safe!

I received an email from Louise Hart who had enjoyed making the Combination Lock model.
She pointed out that the centre core of the lock is just the right size to hold a few mini chocolate eggs. 'Why not do an Easter special?' she suggested, perhaps a set of downloadable tumblers with pictures instead of numbers. So, here it is! Hope you enjoy it, what a great idea Louise:-)