Eating stands

Asked to make a set of handicap-accessible eating stands for the Kitchener Christkindl Market, I am finally entering the home stretch.

Designed to give people a place to eat and drink while attending the market, these stands will feature two foldable shelves and one fixed shelf – one for the able bodied at about 40″ off the ground, and another for those in wheelchairs and for children, where a 30″ surface is more appropriate, and with sufficient clearance to allow the

wheelchairs to glide easily underneath without bumping into structural members.

Although simple in principle, these stands incorporate a wide variety of materials and every element has been carefully measured and integrated so that the final product meets everyone’s needs. Because they are stored for much of the year, they have been designed so that they can be easily disassembled and stacked for compact storage, each component is light but strong enough that it can be moved and stored without heavy equipment yet heavy enough that, when assembled, it will not blow over or be knocked about, and can be re-assembled with relative ease and limited resources.

Here the rooves are being fitted to their bases. Because these are made by hand, not computerized machinery, there are likely slight variations in the placement of holes. This means that each part is numbered. To assemble, one simply needs to match the numbers on each part. The first stand is made of Upright 1 and Upright 2. The second stand is composed of Upright 3 and Upright 4, and so on to Uprights 15 and 16.

All the parts are light enough to be handled by one adult, except the central stretcher. The central stretcher is quite heavy due to the weight of the two attached shelves and should therefore be moved by two adults. The roof is relatively light but awkward so it is also best moved by two adults. The easiest method to install the roof is to use either a fork lift to carefully raise it, with an adult at either upright to guide it into place, or to have two adults to lift it up and then pass it to two others on step platforms, one at each upright, who then set it into place and install the four 4 1/2″ bolts. Here, as there were just two of us, we used the first method with me getting of the tractor to help with the final assembly. Each stand should take about 15 minutes to assemble. Assembly instructions will be posted shortly.