XyloVan

Playa armor for mutant vehicles comes in mad variety: weathered clapboard, diffraction-foil paneling, lycra skin over bent-steel skeleton, fur.

Back when we first dreamed up JANUS, I was thinking it could be a pipe-steel skeleton with some sort of canvas draping.

But David’s design turned out to be a lot lighter and tighter – and it required a different approach to the skin.

To keep the surface close to the original curves in the design, I started draping the material – 8-ounce coarse-weave canvas dropcloths from Home Depot – over the profiles that make up the pianos’ “shoulders.” I clamped them in place at the top …

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Once I re-hung all the profiles, I realized (yet again) that I am a complete idiot.

The saying goes “measure twice, cut once” but it does NOT say “measure three times, taking into account three-dimensional design, the fact that you’re not on level ground and that you’re a complete numbskull, cut once.”

I had failed to take into consideration the … aw, hell, I won’t bore you with the details. Anyway, the top-line `1x4s were misaligned by a good 4.5 inches.

Suffice to say, I trimmed the tops of the front profiles on both sides to bring them into line with the rear profiles, then kludged together the 1x4s – the whole line will be hidden somewhat by the cloud shapes that we’re attaching later to the top of the piano lid, so all’s well … Continue reading

I had the supreme privilege of taking XyloVan to BarCampLA 8, an ad-hoc un-conference that I like to think of as an intellectual mosh pit, where tech, art, community and strategy thrash and get sweaty.

I set up in the upper lot, and told the stories of how I built it (one of these days I have to arrange all the posts on this blog into a single stack of step-by-step links), and gave helpful instruction on how to not get killed at Burning Man.

Many thanks to everyone who listened kindly and played energetically. You’re an inspiring community of fertile minds.

Can’t wait for the next BarCamp.


More pictures here, courtesy of Jane Lee:

XyloVan doesn’t usually do requests – we like to show up where we think people will have fun with us. But Jim Hodgson, a Burner alum, asked us to park at the Down Syndrome of L.A. Buddy Walk last weekend, and it turned out to be a nice experience. We gave a lot of kids smiles – probably the polar/thematic/social/atmospheric opposite of the playa. Here are a few snaps:

Time to add the unreasonable number of big, cheap Chinese-made LED floods and strobes … Continue reading

We got it all rigged. It took the four of us about half an hour to get it all monkeyed together, but by god, it stands – at least it still is as I write this, two nights later in peak winds of 18 mph – and the whole thing hangs together structurally as if it could stand more. How much more remains to be seen.

I think I’ll need bigger rope, in the long run – no telling how much damage the rope will take from the ringbolts it’s passing through. I wonder if I should run it through pulleys there, like tall ships do.

It just needs to be realigned around the shoulders, and it’s missing a couple of gussets at the ends, and perhaps a sewn-in draw-bar for the canopy end.

What holds this crazy rig together? Why, gussets, of course.

Fold a nine-inch wide strip of fabric (at 60″) into a strip four layers thick, seam its long edges, and then cut it into strips about six inches long.

Then seam the cut edges and voila – a little stack of stout reinforcements …

… to be sewn into place to keep the fabric all in one piece while still letting the air flow through.

Step one, attempt to throw together an enormous framework of PVC pipe to arc over the van like some demented logo for caffeinated high-fructose corn syrup ‘n’ gutbombs.

Valiantly attempt to model it.

Then, when that fails, toss the PVC aside and acquire some 1″ steel conduit and connectors for a new frame, which you injure yourself building.

Then start sewing. (more photos after the jump. Continue reading

It’s hot on the playa.

Relentlessly, often stupidly, hot. So we’re putting some shade over the keyboards.

We trudged around the Garment District the other day, haggled with shopkeepers and for $3 a yard, walked away with this very light, opaque and strong synthetic fabric that feels something like raw silk and matches the van’s trim in color … Continue reading