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I once built a crash cart for an MRI room. It had to carry a 500 lb person and could not have ANY metal in it. Frame was schedule 80 PVC. Bed was plywood secured with nylon bolts. Wheels were laminated wood with oak swivels and nylon bearings. Charged them $1000 for it. That beat their next best price by $1500 (as I later found out). I put 10 sacks of ready mix concrete on it for testing. 15 years later I heard they still had it in the room and that it had never been used. But, they were on their 3rd MRI machine. The $1000 is long gone.
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I love the use of materials in new and challenging ways.
When I was in school there was a guy who built some of the strongest furniture I have ever seen, out of styrofoam.
He would laminate it between thin coats of fibreglass and resin. The cool part was that he left the fibreglass exposed and transparent (no gel coat). At first when you looked at his furniture you would see the blue styrofoam core and assume it to be very fragile. Then you would see a full grown man jump up and down on it.
This was very early on in my studies, I have been inspired to find those kinds of surprises ever since.
*The most out-of-the-ordinary things I ever built were a pair of 40' diameter wooden tanks 7' deep for a marine research lab in Newfoundland. Myself and a teenage son of a friend built them barrel fashion from 3" t&g lumber milled with a slight bevel on the groove edge and a dado near the bottom to fit over the circular floor. We lashed them together with six or seven rings of 3/4" wire and turnbuckles. Ron
*Former boss built a vari-ez like Rein's friends furniture, which I think was one of Rutan's options. Still flying last I heard.
*Hey Ron - If you used 3" wide material (~480 boards) the bevel angle on each edge would have been 0.375 degrees! Divide the number of edges into 360.
*Mike, I think Ron said slight bevel :)
*I designed and built all the structures for the Human and Canine obstacle courses for the first annual American Red Cross, Public Safety Games in May of 1995. This was probably the neatest thing I've ever done. It was all done by donation and has been used by police, fire and EMS personel from all over the country every year since. It is also used for training various local departments throughout the year. The structures are located at the Cleveland Police training facility.Pete
*A roughly 30' x 16' octagonal turntable for a theatre set. Its pivot point was two pieces of iron pipe welded to diamond plates. One pipe fit inside the other, with a ton of axle grease for lubrication. The platform was constructed of a series of 4'x8' (and other odd sizes as needed) 1x6 platforms with 3/4 ply decking. All the platforms connected to each other using coffin locks. Rested on about 50-60 heavy duty non-swivel casters. Assembled upside down, with a taut string from the pivot to each caster location. Casters aligned and fastened perpendicular to the string. Disassemble, turn over, reassemble, and cover decking with masonite, with a masonite apron on the edges to hide the gap to the floor. Then built a 15' high x 30' long x 1' wide wall down the middle of the platform, plus some other scenery on each side of the wall. It allowed for one side to be used for the stage, while other side is being set. Rotate between scenes and reset the other side.Rotation came from stage crew behind just pushing like a merry-go-round, but careful to stay out of view of audience so as to give illusion of a mechanical rotation. It was real light & easy to push, which was good because we could have only about 3 people push it. Audience only saw a wall and what looked like a normal platform during the opening scene, and then at first blackout saw this monstrosity rotate. Every night, the set itself (and us, by extension) got its own applause at that first scene change.
*The turn table reminded me of once building a potters wheel for the local kindegarden class. I framed it out of 2x8 fir, seat and all. The kick wheel was 4" thick, 2' diameter concrete poured into a plywood base with tin sides (till concrete set up). The bearings on the top and bottom were wheel bearings off my 66 mustang. It had a 10" metal plate on top. The teacher let my kids use it first! 20 years later it was still there and still being used. It never need more grease. Once it was kicked up to speed, it would keep turning for a long time.
*About ten years ago we built an authentic fully functional outhouse in Michigan. Apparently this was somewhat unusual, as the board of health was quite amused when the permit application was filed. The outhouse served a restored one-room schoolhouse, where children from many surrounding communities were sent to experience what schooling was like in the old days. Sevearl design factors were somewhat challenging, such as making the outhouse ADA compliant without ruining the historical accuracy. It had to look like your basic one seater outhouse from the 1800's. I learned that installing a properly designed vent stack (or chimney) is quite important to prevent an outhouse from becoming overly stinky!Gregg
*I know what you me about the MRI rooms. We built one last summer. Couldn't use steel studs, had to use fire-resistant wood studs. Windows were made especially for it, doors,and floors. Also you can't let in any RF signals, so copper shielding has to be installed on all the walls and ceiling. The list goes on. But esentially no RF signals and no metal (an MRI machine is a BIG magnet). Billy
*If you want an outrageously funny book about outhouses, read "The Specialist", by Chic Sales. It's out of print but lots of used book stores on the internet have it. His life long dream was to build a 2 story outhouse, but no one ever ordered one.
*Built (for an art student) a 12ft high x 8ft diameter room with a domed roof. it was approached along a winding passage 4 ft wide with an arched roof. built completely out of scrap materials, ( old hard board, block board and 2x3) as the student had no money. Plastered inside and out and the roof pierced in several places to act as giant pinhole camera. Lasted 3 weeks until she passed her B.A. then torn down and recycled. Strangest thing to date but I still work at the Art College.....
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I once built a crash cart for an MRI room. It had to carry a 500 lb person and could not have ANY metal in it. Frame was schedule 80 PVC. Bed was plywood secured with nylon bolts. Wheels were laminated wood with oak swivels and nylon bearings. Charged them $1000 for it. That beat their next best price by $1500 (as I later found out). I put 10 sacks of ready mix concrete on it for testing. 15 years later I heard they still had it in the room and that it had never been used. But, they were on their 3rd MRI machine. The $1000 is long gone.