Different – but connected. Kiwi boxes!

Recently Suzy posted a picture of me (Andrew) on Facebook taking part in a health check of a Kiwi which quite a few people were interested in. I thought I would share a little more about this and show something I have recently been working on. Over the last year I have been involved with the Kiwi team in a conservation project overseen by Otanewainuku Kiwi Trust. I am out most weekends walking in a nearby forest and have found it both fascinating and incredibly rewarding.

About six months ago we were discussing the specialised boxes for transporting Kiwi and I suggested I could probably make something that would do the job well, certainly better than what we were currently using. Having access to some great materials and the laser engraver certainly gave me a leg up and away I went. The prototypes I made proved to work very well and have been noticed by other people involved in Kiwi conservation. We have found they are much lighter than comparable boxes so are easier to carry and the very precious Kiwi are able to be moved in a much safer and secure way. The following pictures are of a pair of boxes that I have made for one of the National Kiwi Hatcheries. This is around the 5th revision of the design and I am really proud of how they have turned out.

So the part that I thought would interest users of Majacraft tools is cross pollination of ideas. Many Majacraft innovations have come from the development and evolution of one idea being transferred to a new situation. These Kiwi boxes are a perfect example of this and in many ways, the spinners and artists who use Majacraft tools have a hand in these Kiwi boxes.

If you look carefully underneath, the boxes are resting on rubber feet that are used on our wheels and carders. The way the boxes clip together with tabs is based on a technique used in our building the jigs for making our wooden bobbins. It has some of our older pedal hinges for the lid (still have Majacraft engraved on them!). The handles for carrying it come from the blending boards. The vents are taken from some prototype weaving reeds I have made. Finally, the engraved designs were added thanks to the learnings from the custom wheels we have made over the years.

Several of the prototype boxes were used in the most recent Kiwi release that was attended by Ineke and Ans from the Netherlands who came to visit us at Majacraft which you can see in the following pictures.

Thanks to Dave Brown and Sheryl Petersen for the inspiration and feedback on the development of these boxes and Maddie Knibbs for her mad photography skills too. And finally thank you to the Majacraft people who set up the environment to create them!

Andrew