MEINL Cajon Drum: June 2015

I’ve always wanted to learn to play the drums but have had neither the space nor the funds to do so, so I was given a MEINL DIY Cajon drum kit as a birthday gift. The kit contained a few wooden pieces, some screws, and rubber feet. Besides playing it afterwards, the most fun part about constructing this drum was gaining confidence in my workshop skills by completing the project with only wood-shop tools. The hardest part was to keep my cat from sitting in the open box while the glue was drying.

Fork Chandelier: January 2015

This idea was inspired by a project on a DIY website which used plastic spoons and one metal ring to create a chandelier. Since we couldn’t find enough spoons at the dollar store, my partner and I used forks instead, and had every other fork in the ring facing the opposite direction as its neighbors to give a continuous effect with a slight bulge at the bottom for style. Fishing line hanging from one small ring supported the the three chandelier-body rings and a small flashlight was also held tightly in line with the middle ring using fishing line. The spoon chandelier creators drilled holes at the end of each spoon handle and around the ring so fishing line could hold the spoons onto the rings. We didn’t have a drill bit small enough, but improvements could be made to the chandelier by using this method instead of scotch-tape for long-term adhesion. I was proud of how well my partner and I were able to budget this project and complete a design as geometrical and stable as it is in two days.