WX11 Display Stand

Art Whitfield's FSR project inspired me to try a WX-related project of my own. I'd been thinking about building a display stand for my WX11 for some time, so over the long weekend (Thanksgiving 1996) I finally did it. No more WX on the piano bench, WX on the floor, or WX on top of the keyboards!

I built the stand out of solid bird's eye maple. It holds the WX upright, tilted back so it can drain. It has velvet pads where the stand contacts the WX, which is at the butt and just above the octave keys. IMHO, it's an attractive holder for an attractive instrument.

Here are some pictures of the stand in JPEG format.

Front View (348x586, 28 Kb)

Side View (420x541, 31 Kb)

Rear View (378x621, 38 Kb)

Detail View of Top, One Side Removed (480x640, 47 Kb)

Disassembled Pieces (442x531, 32 Kb)

Close Up of Base (454x382, 32 Kb)

Underside of Base (332x385, 25 Kb)

Design and Construction

The three top pads are velvet wrapped around cardboard, with a layer of felt inside the center pad. I put tacks through the cardboard before gluing the velvet on, then drove the tacks into predrilled holes in the maple.

The bottom pad will probably absorb moisture, so it's velvet on styrofoam instead of cardboard. It is removable for cleaning or replacement. (I'll see how much moisture it absorbs...) I cut two styrofoam blocks and wrapped each one separately. The front pad is higher and keeps the WX from sliding forward. The rear pad is cupped and keeps the WX from sliding side to side. The velvet is pinned onto the foam using shortened straight pins.

While I was building the stand, I realized that I could construct it to be disassemblable for transport. Disassembled into four pieces, it fits into an 18 x 3 x 4 inch volume. I'm thinking of making a little bag to carry it in, with the pieces separated by fabric. The four pieces are held together with dowels. Because I aligned the dowel holes imprecisely, the dowels have enough friction to hold the stand together. In particular, the two dowels between the base and the center upright are about 5 degrees off from parallel.

I didn't realize how much wood I would sand off to get a smooth finish on the maple, so the stand came out too narrow to hold the WX. I fixed that by putting some brass washers on the horizontal dowels to hold the side pieces further apart.

Things that are not done yet.

• Finish the wood. I need to stain, varnish, or seal the wood. It looks okay raw, but it soaks up dirt and oil like crazy.
• Glue the brass washers down. They're always falling off.
• Make a carrying bag.

What I Learned

If I did it again, I'd make the following changes.

• Wider body. I'd make the center post about a quarter inch wider to obviate the brass washer kludge.
• Wider base. If this stand were a couple of inches wider it would be more stable on carpet.
• Thinner sides. The side pieces are too massive. They would look better if they were thinner, I think. I tried to make them look thinner by beveling them, but they could be even less.
• Use a drill press. I don't have one, but I could probably have gotten time on one. One of the side pieces is askew because the dowel holes are crooked. Also, the blind dowel holes are all different depths.

But most importantly, building this stand was a lot of fun.

Bob Miller, kbob@jogger-egg.com, December 1, 1996