¶ Barrel (1)
RBF Definitions
“I give the explanation of a barrel. In a barrel you have a number of staves parallel to one another. These staves make a cross cut through the barrel. You’ll find each of these staves looks like a keystone in an arch. Eachm stave is a truncated section of a triangle whose interior apex would be at the center of the barrel. So you just cut the beautiful triangular wedges, but you cut off the inner part which isn’t necessary. You still have a wedge where the outer part of it is a greater chord than the inner part. Therfore, it can’t fall in between the others. So all these staves are in line and parallel to one another, bound in a circle. There are comprehensive tension straps to hold them inwardly. They can’t move outwardly due to the finitiness of the straps coming back upon themselves, and they can’t fall inwardly on each other because their external chords are bigger than their internal. So the barrel seems to be pretty stable, butthetension bands don’t touch one another-- they’re in parallel to one another and the staves are in parallel. They don’t cross or give you any triangulation whatsoever. In fact, they let infinity in to the system because the staves go on andon to infinity.”
¶ Citations
- RBF in Hans Meyer Interview, Dome Book Two, p. 90. Dec’70
