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MARCHING MACHINE




Unfortunately this was a rush job. I was doing a sectional at a local high school on a Thursday and the band had a concert on the following Wednesday night. At the time I was still working at the bike shop full time, coaching for the YS, and had a larger number of private students.
They actually had a marching machine that someone had made, but the blocks were made from 1X2 lumber each 8" long. They were strung by different lengths of rope making it look more like a wooden windchime. It was difficult to hold, made extraneous sounds when picked up, and sounded more like a 'rout' than 'marching'.
Since time was critical, I chose to reuse the existing frame but removed the rope and blocks. 2X2 lumber cut in 4" lengths, drilled holes 1" down from the top through each block, a second hole 1/2" lower on the other sides. I then re-drilled matching holes on the length and width of the frame. Paracord was used to string and tension the blocks. The machine had 40 blocks total with 5 rows of 8.

If I had more time, I would have stained or varnished the wood to protect it, but I finished it the morning of the concert leaving them only 1 rehearsal before the performance.

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  1. Far Side of FiftyOctober 4, 2019 at 5:55 PM

    Interesting, I can only imagine what it sounded like:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. RonaldOctober 5, 2019 at 6:53 AM

    How did you know what size to cut them too without hearing it first? And would Pop have approved of using an "unfinished" product? 🤫 I know he would not have approved of emojis!

    ReplyDelete

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