Project Information
Mark, a friend of mine who is a musician, asked me to build an "interesting" box to house the electronics for a Theramin that he purchased in kit form. What is a Theramin? It is an electronic instrument that is controlled by the musician moving their hands (without actually touching) near one or two antennas. You've heard one as part of the StarTrek theme. Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin
The height of the box is tall enough to accommodate the antenna, and protect it from damage during transport. The length had to be long enough to keep the electronics and battery out of the antenna's field of influence. Width was determined by the size of the printed circuit board. The bottom of the box is removable for battery replacement.
The small drawer was requested as a place to store Mark's guitar picks, and since I did not want it to have any sort of knob or pull, my solution was to use a "touch-latch" (push once to release; push again to latch) commonly used on kitchen cupboard doors. This holds the drawer in the closed position when latched, but allows the drawer to slide completely out when released. One part that is not shown in the photos is the drawer compartment which is fitted closely enough to the actual drawer so that the contents can't "sneak out" into the interior of the box.
The corners of the box (photo 4) are done with twisted dovetails to make it "interesting", and the top marquetry was done with quilted maple veneer (supplied by Mark) as the background, with mahogany for the inlay. While the maple looks like the top surface is undulating, it is in fact completely flat, and this visual effect is what attracted Mark to this wood. The raw veneer didn't know the meaning of the word flat, so getting it flat was another story, but the end result was what Mark wanted.
The height of the box is tall enough to accommodate the antenna, and protect it from damage during transport. The length had to be long enough to keep the electronics and battery out of the antenna's field of influence. Width was determined by the size of the printed circuit board. The bottom of the box is removable for battery replacement.
The small drawer was requested as a place to store Mark's guitar picks, and since I did not want it to have any sort of knob or pull, my solution was to use a "touch-latch" (push once to release; push again to latch) commonly used on kitchen cupboard doors. This holds the drawer in the closed position when latched, but allows the drawer to slide completely out when released. One part that is not shown in the photos is the drawer compartment which is fitted closely enough to the actual drawer so that the contents can't "sneak out" into the interior of the box.
The corners of the box (photo 4) are done with twisted dovetails to make it "interesting", and the top marquetry was done with quilted maple veneer (supplied by Mark) as the background, with mahogany for the inlay. While the maple looks like the top surface is undulating, it is in fact completely flat, and this visual effect is what attracted Mark to this wood. The raw veneer didn't know the meaning of the word flat, so getting it flat was another story, but the end result was what Mark wanted.
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