Record Player w/ Organ Pipes–Upcycling Design

Over the weekend, I visited the ReSource scrapyard near Arapahoe and 63rd.  I had an initial design idea, but found no materials to follow through with the design.  After browsing for quite some time, more ideas began to flow.  At one point, I found a piece of duct work that reminded me of the horn component of a gramophone (old-timey record player).  I’m a big fan of vinyl and thought that a gramophone sculpture design would be great.  A moment later, I saw some steel pipes which sparked the idea to cut them at different lengths to create a church organ aesthetic instead of a gramophone horn.  I combined the ideas to design a record player with organ pipes set behind the spin platter.  After browsing further, I found a piece of granite and “bamboo” shelving to make the base from.  In total, I purchased four five-foot steel pipes, a piece of granite, and the wood shelving for around $7.  Additional materials will be needed in order to create the spin platter and tone-arm.  Below, I have included pictures of the recycled material as well as a church organ to convey the design idea.

IMG_0659

Upcycled Materials

pipeorgan

Example of pipe organ design

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3 Comments. Leave new

  • Thomas Brunsgaard
    January 28, 2016 8:21 pm

    You chose some really unique materials, and I think they will lend them selves very nicely to an organ-like design. Are you going to be shaping the granite slab into a circle to look like an LP? Some organ pipes have a really beautiful looking pipe arrangement where each pipe is progressively shorter than the one before (either in a parabolic arc or more like a linear staircase) . It could actually look really interesting to cut the pipe ends at angles. I am excited to see how this comes together!

    Reply
  • Jason Mcgrath
    January 28, 2016 8:17 pm

    This is going to be an interesting project to build. Since it’s art for art’s sake, you can really focus on making a cool visual arrangement. Are you going to try to follow a classical organ style or go ballistic? In case you need to really get into the organ state of mind watch Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor on youtube! It blew my mind!

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  • Good plan! Looking forward to seeing it realized.

    Reply

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