This week, Fixperts Resident Maya Alvarado goes back to see Mrs Ellis with a prototype for her tea tray and carries on working on her leather footrest for wheelchair-user Heidi at British furniture manufacturer Benchmark.
06:20: I wake up for work and have a shower. I have some cornflakes with banana for breakfast and a cup of spiced camomile tea.
07:05: As I arrive at work the sky is full of colour. The shades of pink and purple look great against the misty grey frost.
07:15: The other day on the train I saw a great mechanism in a lift out table. The tray moved up a groove and around its curve into its finished level position from a vertical to horizontal position. The grooves supported the tray from bending under pressure. I want to test this out for a second eating tray prototype for Mrs Ellis in the village. I have not seen her for a few weeks as she has had family to stay, so I haven’t had a chance to test the last prototype I made. I sketch some possible grooves for the tray to move out from a closed to open position. I follow the movements with a strip of plywood – imagining how the surface would travel. This will be different from the train table, as it will go from an upwards diagonal to a horizontal direction, and need enough space to swivel in to this position, but still fit inside the box in the walker.
08:00: I cut these grooves out with a jigsaw and make up a rig to test the motion. This groove design is good for holding in most of the tray in a closed position, but it needs to be tilted slightly to finish at a 180-degree angle. This tilt means that the tray will be blocked by the top surface that is currently in place. In order to overcome this, the tray must hang out a bit more, which feels like a messy compromise.
08:30: I try out a slightly different version where the diagonal groove continues for longer and it works a lot better. The final position is a few degrees out, but can be tweaked easily.
09:30: As I pull the tray out, I struggle to grip the surface, so I quickly add an oval hole for a handle.
09:40: This moves in and out far more easily and could work as an addition to the eating tray. As these rigs are not fitted within the dimensions of the box that will parasite off Mrs Ellis’ walker, I decide not to take them with me on my visit to her today. I will test the first prototype and incorporate these mechanisms into the next iteration after today’s results. I wrap up my first prototype and get my things ready to take to Mrs Ellis’s house.
10:30: I arrive at Mrs Ellis’s house and unwrap the prototype to get on to her walker. It just doesn’t fit! I turn the walker over and manage to get an idea of what to change. Curving the back of the bottom storage box would make it fit, so I will make sure this works next time.
11:00: I take extra measurements for the next version and chat with Mrs Ellis about her weeks spent with her son who visited from New Zealand.
11:15: Mireya is really involved in making changes for the food tray. It is really important to have her feedback, as she is the one who will be using the tray. She is concerned about the weight, given that it would be lifted in and out of the walker at different times of the day. Ideally it would be a plastic injection-moulded item, making it very lightweight, however the tooling costs for this are extremely high for a single item. I will search for the lightest wood to make it with and keep it as thin as possible. After talking about it for a while, we decided to try another option with a fold down tray rather than a pull out drawer tray. This will reduce the amount of material needed, so could work nicely.
12:00: I head back to Benchmark to mock up the fold down tray. I use MDF (medium density fibreboard) and hinges to create the tray at the right height for Mrs Ellis.
12:30: I use a router to cut out spaces for the hinges to sit flush. In order to get this just right I make a jig out of a thin sheet of plywood. I clamp this to the board and run the router cutter along it to remove the right amount of material. The block at the back is for the folding tray to rest on in the closed position. The addition of handles at both sides will allow the whole item to be picked up from above.
13:00: Lunchtime – Jo makes her fabulous salads and everyone has a great feast! Best lunch by far!!
13:30: After lunch I laminate the top of the ‘T-handle’ spatula for Heidi by layering strips of veneer on to the first bend. When these are dry I will cut the excess off and use a radius cutter router to round the handle.
14:15: I spend the rest of the afternoon prepping for the fitting of Heidi’s wheelchair footrests this weekend. I remake the leather pieces, selecting two pieces that match in colour and texture. I sew these together with a very strong thread, punching holes along each seam.
17:00: I select a range of nuts and bolts to secure it in place and pack my drill with a range of tools to make holes in the base of her existing foot platforms. I cut a number of brass plates to secure the sides down, but I will wait to drill the holes when I am there to align with any existing holes. I really hope that they fit in place correctly, in order to have Heidi’s new footrests in place in time for the Christmas holidays.
