Behind the Scenes (Week 3)

Rachel
Apr 14
2 min read

Making Progress! Yesterday the Oak Frame came together nicely. The frame is stable, and square.

The black angle brackets make the horizontal members appear to float against the verticals. These are 1-1/4 inch angle brackets connecting (2 qty) 3.5" x 0.75" x 48" Oak vertical supports and (4qty) 1.5" x 0.5" horizontal supports 41-1/16" wide. To assemble, I leaned it up against the wall and on the floor- a little tricky for one pair of hands, but was able to manage with some painters tape, wood blocking lots of measuring hacks including post it notes, and lots of patience.

Let's talk magnets. Oh my. They are definitely polarized At first I attached the mylar with one set of magnets at the top of each tile. The mylar tile then spun about 90 degrees from the one above it. After trying two magnets per tile, the polarity of the magnet aligned the set vertically, but the whole column wants to orient true north, regardless of where the frame sits.

The magnets add weight. I upsized the buttons for visual interest and heft, and am thankful to use the stronger fishing line. I knotted the button at the bottom first and fished the line through the horizontal bars, top and bottom, but in hindsight, this should go the other way so as to help gravity work with the piece. I am going to experiment next with a balsa vertical support and magnets to see if that is more stable. Otherwise I'll string the fishing line top to bottom in the next step.

Looking ahead to dos:

+Test Balsa Wood as vertical support that rotates in frame

+Paint the back side of the mylar so the mirror image and the original can flicker back and forth within the frame.