Cajon for my friend's birthday

Pretty neat! Seems like it would be a really fun project to do.

-- VR, Richard "Fear is nothing more than a feeling. You feel hot. You feel hungry. You feel angry. You feel afraid. Fear can never kill you"--Remo Williams

Nice job. I like the snares. I mounted my snare on a cupboard door hinge which snaps close so I have to reach in through the sound hole ion the back to flip it on or off. I’m curious what you used for the tapa?

Nice job. I like the snares. I mounted my snare on a cupboard door hinge which snaps close so I have to reach in through the sound hole ion the back to flip it on or off. I m curious what you used for the tapa?

- HankLP

Shoot! I completely left that out of the video. That was part of what I lost when I forgot to hit the record button.

It was just plain 1/4” maple veneer plywood. I couldn’t find any 1/8” ply at the home stores around me.

Also, with the snares, I found that putting them up against the tapa below the dowel (rather than above as seen in the picture) gives a much better snare sound.

-- Tony, SW Chicago Suburbs

Really nice, Tony! I’m sure your friend will love it. My wife liked hers so much, we created a little drum kit around it.

-- Even if you fall on your face, you are still moving forward. - Tim, Southern California

You did a nice job on this and your friend should be pleased.

-- helluvawreck aka Charles, http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

It looks really nice to me, I’m sure your friend will think so too. I bet it sounds as good as it is beautiful.Thanks for inspiring

-- CurleyJoe, "You only learn from your mistakes"

This looks beautiful!
2 things I see that can be affecting the bass sounds: – sound hole too close to the tapa: distorts some low tones into inaudible vibration – tapa too thick (and potentially too dense): tapping moves the tapa in smaller waves than a thinner one

If you don’t want to or can’t change the tapa (in the case of a gift, I’d rather send an “extra one”) you could route the outer edges, making a rabbet close to the border where it’s screwed on, the thicker the rabbet, the more chance there is to increase the size of the sound waves, making a deeper sound.

I’ve been thinking it’d be fun to try tapas with variable thickness (one side thicker than the other), that could increase the range, and snares that can rotate (additionally from retraction) so they could go from a bass snare to a high snare. Too many variables, and likely to fail, just saying it’d be fun.

This looks beautiful!
2 things I see that can be affecting the bass sounds: – sound hole too close to the tapa: distorts some low tones into inaudible vibration – tapa too thick (and potentially too dense): tapping moves the tapa in smaller waves than a thinner one

If you don t want to or can t change the tapa (in the case of a gift, I d rather send an “extra one”) you could route the outer edges, making a rabbet close to the border where it s screwed on, the thicker the rabbet, the more chance there is to increase the size of the sound waves, making a deeper sound.

I ve been thinking it d be fun to try tapas with variable thickness (one side thicker than the other), that could increase the range, and snares that can rotate (additionally from retraction) so they could go from a bass snare to a high snare. Too many variables, and likely to fail, just saying it d be fun.

- Frank

Interesting. I’ll definitely keep this in mind when building my next one. I already have other ideas on what to do with it. I think it will be fun. But it won’t be for a while yet. Got a lot of other projects in the pipeline.

-- Tony, SW Chicago Suburbs

Really nice, Tony! I m sure your friend will love it. My wife liked hers so much, we created a little drum kit around it.

- SirGareth

My friend already has a full (cheap) drum kit, but it’s a bit prohibitive to carry around to small acoustic gigs. However he could totally cannibalize the kit for pedals and such to use on the cajon.

-- Tony, SW Chicago Suburbs