• Coffee Table
  • Day 1
  • Day 2
  • Day 3
  • Day 4
  • Day 5
  • Day 6
  • Day 7
  • Day 8
  • Day 9
  • Day 10
  • Conclusion
• Whiteboard

Day 7

Natures Contribution

Whilst waiting for the next weekend to roll around my roof seemed to have sprung a leak and of all the places in 100 square meters of roof it leaks onto the projector. No warning, having never leaked there before. I moved the whole prototype back about 30cm out of the way and placed a bucket under the leak only to find the next morning the leak had travelled to the projector again, this time I decided it was time to remount the mirror for the final build and let the projector dry out so I began to disassemble the prototype.

Murphies Law

Well the first day of the fourth weekend had rolled around and everything had gone from smooth sailing to zero travel. The local hardware store that had promised to get in the remaining 13 copper Tee fittings had their order withdrawn by management which of course they didn't tell me until I arrived to collect them. I did however purchase a pair of turnbuckles, some picture wire and a set of mirror brackets which I was planning on using to keep the mirror and its backing sheet under tension and prevent it from sagging in the middle (kudos to KingToros for the idea of using turnbuckles instead of stiff reinforcement).

Having failed to get the copper Tee fittings from my local hardware store however I looked into a more specialised source, a local plumbing and bathroom goods supplier which I found after a quick ferret. I found on their website that they were open till 5:30 and it was 4:45, they were only a few blocks away. It was uphill all the way, steep... quite steep... I got there at 4:58 just in time to see three plumbers leaving the building, with the lights of and enabling the security alarm. So began the walk back, the good new however is that they were open the next morning... what could possibly go wrong.

For the mounting of the mirror I did attempt to get my hands on adjustable mirror brackets such as these however once again my local hardware store was prepared to disappoint. So I settled for a set designed to mount a mirror onto a much larger backing board, bent the screw tags over so that they formed a U channel to cup each corner of my mirror and its existing backing board. By now framing the mirror I don't lose any real estate to the border and vertically this is quite important for a full height screen as there is not much room to play with. By keeping it all pretty lightweight I was hoping to make it easier to handle and mount into the final frame assuming I ever got the copper tee fittings to finish it, it didn't just fall to pieces or was so loose and wobbly that it couldn't support the glass.

I used a piece of picture wire on each bracket which I ran from one screw hole through the turnbuckle and then tied it off on the other screw hole. The turnbuckles allowed me to rig it all up loose enough to put the mirror in when let all the way out and tighten the whole thing up to keep the mirror straight and allow for later adjustment once the mirror was mounted into the table frame.

Luckily for me the plumbing supplier did have enough 3/4" copper tee fittings and I began to mark out the outline of the inner dimensions of the table design on the ground with masking tape to help me line up angles whilst assembling the frame.

After using one of the copper Tee fittings to finish the last 1200mm side section and then making up the 6 450mm sides sections I began laying everything out in component sections ready to assemble. It was time for the hard part... assembling the frame layer by layer whilst getting the segments to stay at 30 degree angles.