Design Loop: Guitar Stand

The design process naturally varies from project to project. For this project, I spent a lot of time thinking about what to make. I wanted something useful, and that I could use on a daily basis. At first that does not seem like a tall task; however with the limitation that it had to be made from remnant materials, it became quite hard to brainstorm. Eventually I decided to attempt to make a guitar stand that could be used for either acoustic or electric guitars and since I currently have an electric guitar that I built from scratch, it seemed fitting to have a stand that I built from scratch as well.

Initial sketching went well as I found several designs online that looked fairly simple and sturdy. When I started the quest to find materials, I had a lot of trouble finding materials that would be easy to work with, yet could support the weight of a guitar. While looking through the shed, I found some old PVC pipe that my landlord had used to make a sprinkler system for the garden. I immediately emailed him and asked for his permission to put it to use. Since there was only 2 pieces of pipe that were roughly 5 feet in length, it put several design limitations on my idea.

After some secondary sketching, I had a design that used about 8 feet of pipe and had laid out which pieces to cut from which pipe to ensure that I could make the guitar stand. After I had pieced together the puzzle that was a guitar stand, I placed my guitar on it and watched a piece PVC pipe that was connecting the part of the stand that holds the guitar to the base had slid out of its housing. This was a weakness of the design, but was quickly remedied with a trip to home depot for some PVC cement. Some cement in the joints strongly secured the pipes and connectors.

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1 Comment. Leave new

  • Scott Lowenstein
    February 14, 2017 9:13 pm

    I like your thorough description of your design process. As you pointed out, there are always issues and pitfalls that arise during the design process, and it was interesting to see how you solved those challenges. If you were to recreate this project knowing what you do now, can you imagine the process having less steps (even with a revised design)? Perhaps you would iterate over your building and design phases, experimenting with possibilities once you have a solid working structure.

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