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Updated: January 25, 2005:

It's finally done! Here's what it looks like (a lot like the rendering below, no?):

Finished piano bench

And here's a closeup of one of the walnut fins/keys (what to call them?) that keeps music from sliding off the shelf:

Closeup of a walnut fin

Another view:

Finished piano bench

Updated: September 29, 2004:

New design that uses the two large planks of wood, more or less as they are:

New design

What do you think?

Updated: June 10, 2004:

It doesn't work!

If you're ever looking for a perfect example of why engineers build models before producing full-scale designs, this is it.

As you can see, the bench design isn't stable at all - it just flops over into a beautiful, but most unbench-like heap of wood and metal.

It could be a fort...

It's back to the drawing board, and, more importantly, the modeling board. As Matt points out, the original design is lacking in the triangle department, leading to its instability - I daresay triangles will make an appearance in the new design.

Updated: October 7, 2003:

Simplified design

A few weeks ago, Rif and I spent some time working on and thinking about his piano bench. We'd bought a reasonable amount of birdseye maple and started to glue it up into wider boards. We realized, however, that we hadn't bought enough to complete the project. It's quite expensive, and we were also falling a bit behind on actually finishing the project (not that we have a deadline), so we decided to refine and simplify the design, as shown above. All the boards are glued up now, and most of the hardware has been purchased, so there are only a few more things to do:

Bench

I've designed an adjustable piano bench for my friend Rif. It's not built yet, but will be soon.

Some notable features:

Here's the bench adjusted to its highest and lowest positions:
Bench - Up

Bench - Down