Final Draft blueprints for construction

We went through several drafts and possible construction designs, and here are the final designs that Jackson came up with. Each blue box is 2 inches, the yellow lines are 1 foot. Poles will be place in 2 feet holes, so the black line is the "ground line". The total width is 61 inches for the Tubulum and 60 inches for the Metal Chimes. Total height for the Tubulum (to the top of the red pole from the ground) is 10 feet, and for the Metal Chimes 6 1/2 feet.

Note the tubulum poles are showing the bottom-most part of the u-bend; remember it curves up and the opening of the pipe will be several inches higher.

Tubulum:

Suspended Metal Chimes:

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Cutting the pipes - trouble shooting

The trickiest part of the build was cutting all the pipes to length. We decided on 8 notes, a c-major scale. There are formulas and estimates for pipe lengths online, but it turns out that the tuning is highly variable with humidity, altitude, and pipe construction. Using a tuner on your phone/ ipad is very helpful. Adding the u-bend to the pipes definitely changed the length of the pipe needed. We made sure to cement the u-bend on first so that there wouldn't be any change in the tone if the pipe wiggled/ moved. To cement the PVC pipe to the u-bend (curved portion), follow the directions on the Oatey cement bottle. It sets up really fast. The biggest hint here is to start long and cut more as needed. We used a machine saw that could cut through PVC and metal. It took 3 hours of trial and error to cut all the pipes and the PVC. The PVC pipe tuning was very easy to do. Remember, you need to bring a flip flop and hit...

Fundraising

After final approval, the fundraising efforts started. Jackson approached 2 Home Depots, 2 Lowes and 1 ACE store. He had a printed letter and came dressed in full scout gear. He always asked to see the manager and he had to return to stores several times to finally talk to a manager in charge of donations. Lowe's never called back or agreed to anything but a discount (no donated goods). He did put out a request for funds through NextDoor without any replies. He also contacted our local realty company (owning all of Castle Hills properties) without any replies. The Lewisville Home Depot kindly donated most of the lumber, pvc, and metal pipes, worth around $280. The Colony Home Depot gave more PVC, MEK, PVC cement and other misc. supplies valued around $70. The Westlake ACE hardware donated $50 of goods, mostly used for carriage bolts, MEK, screws and sandpaper. The rest was purchased by ourselves online and in stores fo...

Jackson Eagle Project - Large Outdoor Musical Instruments

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