Who do I turn to
with such a question? McKee. He’s a design engineer so we know he’s
well versed. He’s also a sculptor, so we know whatever solution he
proposes is going to be elegant. This is the guy who has a motto
emblazoned over an elaborate oak and stained-glass hobbit door on his house
that reads: “Never make anything simple and efficient if a way can be found to
make it complex and wonderful.”
Our problem had to
do with the couch/bed in the van. There is a certain lack of logic to how
it functions. It’s primarily a jackknife couch, with an additional
stationary piece on one end. To convert from a couch to a bed is
easy. Lift up in the front edge of the couch seat and the parts (couch
seat and couch back) separate and lay down flat for a bed. To
reconstitute the couch, however, is not quite so easy. With the whole
thing laid out flat, the leverage is gone. There is not enough advantage
to just lift the front of the couch seat and have everything pop back into
place. It takes more power than I possess. The combined effort of
Judy and me together, lifting from the front, can get it done, but that didn’t
feel sustainable as a long-term solution.
I thought about
this for weeks and came up with a couple solutions myself that should have
helped, but they didn’t. So, I turned to McKee. “Leverage and
mechanical advantage” he said. “I can deal with that.” We drove to
his house. I demonstrated the difficulty. I got the couch part-way
up and left it in that position so he could examine the mechanism. He
took a long look from every angle. He muttered. He disappeared to
his garage and came back out with an improvised tool. He directed me to
the leverage point on the frame. “Stick this in there and lift up
here.” I did. The front of the bed lifted right up, and the rest
was easy. Exactly the power assist we needed. And here it is, the
elegant solution.
A four-foot long
2x4 board. (Sanded and rounded so we won’t get splinters.) Elegant
in its simplicity. Stows on the floor slid-in next to the bed.
The McKees.
Such good friends for so many years (50).
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