The Music Box Project

 Hi Everyone,

The chair from yesterday's post has had more wood stain applied to it and tomorrow I'll put on a polyurethane finish. It's drying right now and you'll see it early next week. While I'm waiting for everything to dry, it's time to begin planning the next project, which will be a music box for a friend of mine. Here's the story:

I have a dear friend who has received a diagnosis of dementia, which for her is a terminal diagnosis. As probably all of you know several of the features of dementia such as memory loss and confusion can really alter a person's life and make old friends and loved ones unrecognizable to the person afflicted with this.

Fortunately my friend has family and neighbors who help her out but I've been wondering if there is a wood working project that might help her remember not only me but her other cat lady friends. 

Music it seems is one way to help a dementia patient connect with memories and so I put two and two together and decided a music box might help her remember her friends someday so a music box it is. 

Discussion and Plans

I made a music box on my old lathe some years ago for a cousin who was having a baby. I used a tree branch for the project and installed a mechanism that played "Teddy Bear Parade." It worked quite well.

For this project I'm going to make a laminated block out of different colors of wood so the resulting box will stand out in her environment both to her and or a future caregiver who hopefully will be prompted to pick up the box and wind it up. It's my hope she'll hear the music and have a happy memory enter her mind.
 

So I'm going to turn the box on the lathe in the shape of a musical horn, only not quite a flared and with a lid to keep out dust. The key to the mechanism will be underneath the box. Since I have the wood and everything else I need for the box, the only thing I'll need is the mechanism.

I'm going to glue up the box this weekend and I'll begin posting about this in detail then.

Stay tuned, 
VW