We're taking a little break over Christmas & New Year, so we just wanted to wish all of our followers and supporters a very cool Yule and festive season.
Last week brought to a close the 2017 Made in Rwanda Expo, where manufacturers and crafts people across the country displayed their wares. There's a real emphasis placed on building and buying local. Rwanda Motorcycle Company won the Best Exhibitor's Award this year. You can read about it here.
We were really hoping to be able to display at the expo this year, but at the time of starting this project, we slightly underestimated the work involved in building a piano, and we wanted to wait until we have a fully functioning instrument to display - so definitely next year.
However, we have achieved a lot so far. We only launched our crowdfunding campaign in April, received the money in July, had fun with flip-flops in August, successfully produced a piano frame in September (after an unsuccessful attempt in June), also received the bass strings and started work on the body around the same time. We've hit heavy delays trying to source steel wire for the mid-section and treble strings, but we think we'll be able to order those in January, meanwhile Désiré is making the keys.
We've come a long way in five months.
There are periods of waiting for things to arrive and trying to source the parts we can't make, but progress is certainly being made. The three hardest things about building a piano are the string frame, the strings, and the action. We've got the frame, we've got half the strings, so we're 50% of the way there, maybe a little more with the case and the keys.
We're looking forward to 2018 with all its challenges.
No comments:
Post a Comment