Project description
We are looking for a carpenter or a small workshop to build a compact nature-study corner for our eleven-year-old son, who was given a school microscope in the autumn and now spends most of his evenings over it: leaf sections, pond water, insect wings, his own home-made preparations. At the moment all of it lives on the kitchen table, which has to be cleared and set up again every single evening, and the slides are kept in an old sweet tin.
The most important thing is stiffness. When he turns the fine focus knob, the image must not wobble, so the top should be a thick solid slab rather than a thin panel on wire legs, the frame should be cross-braced or panelled at the sides, and the feet should be adjustable, because the floor is not level. Height matters just as much: he is 148 centimetres tall and works seated on an ordinary chair, so please measure his actual sitting position and set the working surface to his elbow rather than taking a standard seventy-five centimetres. A removable riser under the instrument would help if we ever need to raise the eyepiece, and a shallow pull-out board for a notebook would be very welcome, since he draws everything he sees.
Light is the second half of the job. We need a directed side source from the left and slightly behind, on a bracket that never stands in front of the eyepiece and throws no reflections onto the ocular or the slide, plus warm dimmable lighting of the whole working plane under the upper shelf. Two or three sockets in the back rail, for the illuminator, a lamp and a charger, with the cables hidden in a channel so nothing dangles near a child's knees. Storage: two shallow drawers with dividers so the slides and cover glasses lie flat and do not knock against each other, one deeper drawer for tweezers, needles, pipettes, a tray and small bottles of stain, and that deeper one must have a lock, because we also have a three-year-old in the house. Surfaces should be washable with a rounded edge and no fabric inserts: if a dye is spilled, a damp cloth must be enough. We would like the work finished in about ten days. Please tell us what materials you suggest, what you would do differently, and the price.
The most important thing is stiffness. When he turns the fine focus knob, the image must not wobble, so the top should be a thick solid slab rather than a thin panel on wire legs, the frame should be cross-braced or panelled at the sides, and the feet should be adjustable, because the floor is not level. Height matters just as much: he is 148 centimetres tall and works seated on an ordinary chair, so please measure his actual sitting position and set the working surface to his elbow rather than taking a standard seventy-five centimetres. A removable riser under the instrument would help if we ever need to raise the eyepiece, and a shallow pull-out board for a notebook would be very welcome, since he draws everything he sees.
Light is the second half of the job. We need a directed side source from the left and slightly behind, on a bracket that never stands in front of the eyepiece and throws no reflections onto the ocular or the slide, plus warm dimmable lighting of the whole working plane under the upper shelf. Two or three sockets in the back rail, for the illuminator, a lamp and a charger, with the cables hidden in a channel so nothing dangles near a child's knees. Storage: two shallow drawers with dividers so the slides and cover glasses lie flat and do not knock against each other, one deeper drawer for tweezers, needles, pipettes, a tray and small bottles of stain, and that deeper one must have a lock, because we also have a three-year-old in the house. Surfaces should be washable with a rounded edge and no fabric inserts: if a dye is spilled, a damp cloth must be enough. We would like the work finished in about ten days. Please tell us what materials you suggest, what you would do differently, and the price.
Other / Miscellaneous Cash, Bank transfer
