Safety Fork, the

I made this organ pipe yesterday. As you can see, it isn’t quite finished; the ends and edges still need to be trimmed so that everything is flush. It speaks an A, 440 Hz—plus or minus a few.

I was impressed by a website documenting the author’s construction of his own instrument. It was a video on his site demonstrating how to build a pipe that made me want to try it. In the end it took more time to assemble the table saw I used than it took to fashion the pipe (discounting time spent waiting for glue to dry, which, though necessary, is not really work).

Now I’m left considering whether I want to try to build a whole organ. It seems like it might be a good hobby, in that a few hours work can yield one or more pipes—complete on their own even if intended for something larger. And my parents are turning an old church into a house, which is as good a place for an organ as I could ask, assuming I ever finished one. On the other hand, I would have to drive out of the city to work on it, since I’m not likely to have appropriate space for a wood shop any time soon. Perhaps it will be a project for me to do on my Fridays this summer.