Musical Instruments

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Der Glockenspiel ist glockenspieling

My grandson starts kindergarten this fall and the school he will be going to has a student Marimba band. My daughter asked if I could build a Marimba after looking around and finding pictures of one. I told her I would give it a try. I like the sound and it looks pretty simple to build.
I ordered plans for one from makeamarimba.com. They also had a plan on how to make the mallets (commercial mallets start at $50 and rapidly climb into outer space. It was discounted to half price and included a free glockenspiel plan. I got the plans and found they had to be translated from australian english to US english. After reading everything a couple of times, I thought it might be a good idea to build the glockenspiel first. It was much smaller, simpler and looked easier to tune.
The first step was to build a frame and drill it for the the key seperators and retainers. These were #4 screws and 1/4" vinyl tubing. This is where the trouble began. I got in a hurry and drilled the screw holes with a hand drill and was a little sloppy with my spacing.

I got everything screwed in cut the keys to length from 1/8×3/4" aluminum bar and tried to tune. Didn't work some of the screw were too close to the bars and wouldn't let them vibrate properly. Time to quit for the day and have a beer.
I had enough cherry prepped that I could build another frame, that I did and used the drill press and stops to space the holes this time.

It will tune now. To tune the keys you grind or sand material foo the bottom center of the bar until you get to the prober note. I only had to burn my fingers once or twice to come up with a stop block and backer board for the keys. Aluminum gets hot in a hurry.

Tuning was an education in itself. I can't tell one note from another. I had an electronic tuner and it was easy to use. I found that the bars did not always tune in a linear manner but would be all over the place before it finally would come in on the note. I did a couple of bars then quit and went to an Ada County Woodworkers meeting that evening and had a long question and answer session with one of the guitar makers. I found I was doing everything right. I spent yesterday and today tuning and finally finished and polished the keys. It actually sounds in tune to my lead ear and the tuner says they are in tune.

This is a paint roller that chucked into my lathe and used with the tripoli and rouge to polish the keys works fairly well and only gets a little compound on your shirt and pants next I'll put on an apron.

They polished out nicely get the in the sunlight and the flash is blinding.

I guess I will have to start accumulating the materials for the marimba. I think I will use a cherry frame on that. On one of the commercial marimba sites a cherry frame is a $450 upgrade. There might be $50 of cherry in the entire frame. I will use paduak for the keys that will make for an orange shop.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Starting the Marimba

I have finally started on the marimba. I am following the plans I got from makeamarimba.com. They are a good plans although some times you have to translate from oz to usa english. I did a lot of searching on line on commercial marimbas and settled on padauk for the keyboard and cherry for the frame. The preferred wood for concert keyboards is rosewood. I called my hardwood supplier to get a price on rosewood when I was able to breath again I decided padauk was a good keyboard wood (most practice marimbas use padauk for the keyboard). Cherry was my wood of choice for the frame. It cost me less than mahogany and was an upgrade wood on commercial instruments.
The first thing the plans call for was to cut and rough tune the keyboard.

This was the first key cut. The keys all vary in length and width. I found the best thing to do was immediately label each key for the note it was to be. it saves a lot on confusion later.

All keys cut and laid out.

Time to tune. It is recommended to tune to about 20 cents sharp it is difficult to bring back if you go to the flat side of the note. I built the jig to hold the keys vertical so the belt sander would take material off evenly across the key. I had to build a second jig because the first wasn't long enough when I got to the lower notes. Note to others build the jig to fit the longest key. I really like working with padauk definitely need to wear a dust mask. Shop was orange when I finished tuning. I am using an 80 grit belt plans recommended 60 grit. The 60 would take material off faster but make it easier to go too far. I am glad I stayed with the 80. I did have to recut one key because I went to far and when bringing it back I could tell looking at the profile next to the other keys what I had done. It did give me a key to later practice drilling holes on and other things so it probably saved me from more mistakes down the line.

I bought an electronic tuner on line similar to what the plans recommended. It was a good tuner the plans came with sound files for all the notes and for somebody with some musical aptitude. It would work very well. I have absolutely no musical aptitude. The tuner did not tell me what octave I was in. I found a tuner app for a kindle fire that gave me the note, the octave, and how far off. I think it cost about $3 It was a lifesaver.

With all the keys cut and rough tuned it is time to build the frame.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Starting the Marimba

I have finally started on the marimba. I am following the plans I got from makeamarimba.com. They are a good plans although some times you have to translate from oz to usa english. I did a lot of searching on line on commercial marimbas and settled on padauk for the keyboard and cherry for the frame. The preferred wood for concert keyboards is rosewood. I called my hardwood supplier to get a price on rosewood when I was able to breath again I decided padauk was a good keyboard wood (most practice marimbas use padauk for the keyboard). Cherry was my wood of choice for the frame. It cost me less than mahogany and was an upgrade wood on commercial instruments.
The first thing the plans call for was to cut and rough tune the keyboard.

This was the first key cut. The keys all vary in length and width. I found the best thing to do was immediately label each key for the note it was to be. it saves a lot on confusion later.

All keys cut and laid out.

Time to tune. It is recommended to tune to about 20 cents sharp it is difficult to bring back if you go to the flat side of the note. I built the jig to hold the keys vertical so the belt sander would take material off evenly across the key. I had to build a second jig because the first wasn't long enough when I got to the lower notes. Note to others build the jig to fit the longest key. I really like working with padauk definitely need to wear a dust mask. Shop was orange when I finished tuning. I am using an 80 grit belt plans recommended 60 grit. The 60 would take material off faster but make it easier to go too far. I am glad I stayed with the 80. I did have to recut one key because I went to far and when bringing it back I could tell looking at the profile next to the other keys what I had done. It did give me a key to later practice drilling holes on and other things so it probably saved me from more mistakes down the line.

I bought an electronic tuner on line similar to what the plans recommended. It was a good tuner the plans came with sound files for all the notes and for somebody with some musical aptitude. It would work very well. I have absolutely no musical aptitude. The tuner did not tell me what octave I was in. I found a tuner app for a kindle fire that gave me the note, the octave, and how far off. I think it cost about $3 It was a lifesaver.

With all the keys cut and rough tuned it is time to build the frame.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Starting the Marimba

I have finally started on the marimba. I am following the plans I got from makeamarimba.com. They are a good plans although some times you have to translate from oz to usa english. I did a lot of searching on line on commercial marimbas and settled on padauk for the keyboard and cherry for the frame. The preferred wood for concert keyboards is rosewood. I called my hardwood supplier to get a price on rosewood when I was able to breath again I decided padauk was a good keyboard wood (most practice marimbas use padauk for the keyboard). Cherry was my wood of choice for the frame. It cost me less than mahogany and was an upgrade wood on commercial instruments.
The first thing the plans call for was to cut and rough tune the keyboard.

This was the first key cut. The keys all vary in length and width. I found the best thing to do was immediately label each key for the note it was to be. it saves a lot on confusion later.

All keys cut and laid out.

Time to tune. It is recommended to tune to about 20 cents sharp it is difficult to bring back if you go to the flat side of the note. I built the jig to hold the keys vertical so the belt sander would take material off evenly across the key. I had to build a second jig because the first wasn't long enough when I got to the lower notes. Note to others build the jig to fit the longest key. I really like working with padauk definitely need to wear a dust mask. Shop was orange when I finished tuning. I am using an 80 grit belt plans recommended 60 grit. The 60 would take material off faster but make it easier to go too far. I am glad I stayed with the 80. I did have to recut one key because I went to far and when bringing it back I could tell looking at the profile next to the other keys what I had done. It did give me a key to later practice drilling holes on and other things so it probably saved me from more mistakes down the line.

I bought an electronic tuner on line similar to what the plans recommended. It was a good tuner the plans came with sound files for all the notes and for somebody with some musical aptitude. It would work very well. I have absolutely no musical aptitude. The tuner did not tell me what octave I was in. I found a tuner app for a kindle fire that gave me the note, the octave, and how far off. I think it cost about $3 It was a lifesaver.

With all the keys cut and rough tuned it is time to build the frame.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Starting the Marimba

I have finally started on the marimba. I am following the plans I got from makeamarimba.com. They are a good plans although some times you have to translate from oz to usa english. I did a lot of searching on line on commercial marimbas and settled on padauk for the keyboard and cherry for the frame. The preferred wood for concert keyboards is rosewood. I called my hardwood supplier to get a price on rosewood when I was able to breath again I decided padauk was a good keyboard wood (most practice marimbas use padauk for the keyboard). Cherry was my wood of choice for the frame. It cost me less than mahogany and was an upgrade wood on commercial instruments.
The first thing the plans call for was to cut and rough tune the keyboard.

This was the first key cut. The keys all vary in length and width. I found the best thing to do was immediately label each key for the note it was to be. it saves a lot on confusion later.

All keys cut and laid out.

Time to tune. It is recommended to tune to about 20 cents sharp it is difficult to bring back if you go to the flat side of the note. I built the jig to hold the keys vertical so the belt sander would take material off evenly across the key. I had to build a second jig because the first wasn't long enough when I got to the lower notes. Note to others build the jig to fit the longest key. I really like working with padauk definitely need to wear a dust mask. Shop was orange when I finished tuning. I am using an 80 grit belt plans recommended 60 grit. The 60 would take material off faster but make it easier to go too far. I am glad I stayed with the 80. I did have to recut one key because I went to far and when bringing it back I could tell looking at the profile next to the other keys what I had done. It did give me a key to later practice drilling holes on and other things so it probably saved me from more mistakes down the line.

I bought an electronic tuner on line similar to what the plans recommended. It was a good tuner the plans came with sound files for all the notes and for somebody with some musical aptitude. It would work very well. I have absolutely no musical aptitude. The tuner did not tell me what octave I was in. I found a tuner app for a kindle fire that gave me the note, the octave, and how far off. I think it cost about $3 It was a lifesaver.

With all the keys cut and rough tuned it is time to build the frame.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Starting the Marimba

I have finally started on the marimba. I am following the plans I got from makeamarimba.com. They are a good plans although some times you have to translate from oz to usa english. I did a lot of searching on line on commercial marimbas and settled on padauk for the keyboard and cherry for the frame. The preferred wood for concert keyboards is rosewood. I called my hardwood supplier to get a price on rosewood when I was able to breath again I decided padauk was a good keyboard wood (most practice marimbas use padauk for the keyboard). Cherry was my wood of choice for the frame. It cost me less than mahogany and was an upgrade wood on commercial instruments.
The first thing the plans call for was to cut and rough tune the keyboard.

This was the first key cut. The keys all vary in length and width. I found the best thing to do was immediately label each key for the note it was to be. it saves a lot on confusion later.

All keys cut and laid out.

Time to tune. It is recommended to tune to about 20 cents sharp it is difficult to bring back if you go to the flat side of the note. I built the jig to hold the keys vertical so the belt sander would take material off evenly across the key. I had to build a second jig because the first wasn't long enough when I got to the lower notes. Note to others build the jig to fit the longest key. I really like working with padauk definitely need to wear a dust mask. Shop was orange when I finished tuning. I am using an 80 grit belt plans recommended 60 grit. The 60 would take material off faster but make it easier to go too far. I am glad I stayed with the 80. I did have to recut one key because I went to far and when bringing it back I could tell looking at the profile next to the other keys what I had done. It did give me a key to later practice drilling holes on and other things so it probably saved me from more mistakes down the line.

I bought an electronic tuner on line similar to what the plans recommended. It was a good tuner the plans came with sound files for all the notes and for somebody with some musical aptitude. It would work very well. I have absolutely no musical aptitude. The tuner did not tell me what octave I was in. I found a tuner app for a kindle fire that gave me the note, the octave, and how far off. I think it cost about $3 It was a lifesaver.

With all the keys cut and rough tuned it is time to build the frame.

Click to expand...

johnstoneb said:

Starting the Marimba

I have finally started on the marimba. I am following the plans I got from makeamarimba.com. They are a good plans although some times you have to translate from oz to usa english. I did a lot of searching on line on commercial marimbas and settled on padauk for the keyboard and cherry for the frame. The preferred wood for concert keyboards is rosewood. I called my hardwood supplier to get a price on rosewood when I was able to breath again I decided padauk was a good keyboard wood (most practice marimbas use padauk for the keyboard). Cherry was my wood of choice for the frame. It cost me less than mahogany and was an upgrade wood on commercial instruments.
The first thing the plans call for was to cut and rough tune the keyboard.

This was the first key cut. The keys all vary in length and width. I found the best thing to do was immediately label each key for the note it was to be. it saves a lot on confusion later.

All keys cut and laid out.

Time to tune. It is recommended to tune to about 20 cents sharp it is difficult to bring back if you go to the flat side of the note. I built the jig to hold the keys vertical so the belt sander would take material off evenly across the key. I had to build a second jig because the first wasn't long enough when I got to the lower notes. Note to others build the jig to fit the longest key. I really like working with padauk definitely need to wear a dust mask. Shop was orange when I finished tuning. I am using an 80 grit belt plans recommended 60 grit. The 60 would take material off faster but make it easier to go too far. I am glad I stayed with the 80. I did have to recut one key because I went to far and when bringing it back I could tell looking at the profile next to the other keys what I had done. It did give me a key to later practice drilling holes on and other things so it probably saved me from more mistakes down the line.

I bought an electronic tuner on line similar to what the plans recommended. It was a good tuner the plans came with sound files for all the notes and for somebody with some musical aptitude. It would work very well. I have absolutely no musical aptitude. The tuner did not tell me what octave I was in. I found a tuner app for a kindle fire that gave me the note, the octave, and how far off. I think it cost about $3 It was a lifesaver.

With all the keys cut and rough tuned it is time to build the frame.

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crowie
I will try to post a video when complete.

- johnstoneb

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johnstoneb said:

Marimba Tune Time

I have all Christmas presents ready and time to work on the Marimba again.
When I left last I had moved the lower keyboard over an 1 1/2 for clearance. After final tune and drilling the keys I didn't like the gap so I moved everything back an 1 1/4. It looks way better. I applied one coat of lacquer.

The old adjustment

The final. Keys are closer to the upper frame and just looks better. I need to quit over thinking these things.

Time to rough tune the keys. the keys were cut to width and length earlier and set aside while I cut and assembled the frame.

To tune the bars you remove material from the underside of the bar. I marked the center of the bar and went to the oscillating belt sander. This is where the Ridgid oscillating belt really outshone a oscillating spindle sander.
I started with an 80 grit belt and went for a rough tune approximately 20 cents sharp. Then I can bring the final tune down after letting things set for a few days and getting the bars drilled and ready to suspend.
When tuning when you get within one percent of the note frequency the last percent is divided into 100 centsat 20 cents sharp you are actually .2% away from away from the final note frequency. You end up really close supposedly the human ear can hear a difference of 2 cents. I can't.

The joy of working with padauk. I like padauk but when sanding the masks come out.

I had to build a jig to hold the bar vertically to take material off evenly. Once the center of the bar was marked. I just eyeballed things and worked both ways about the same distance. I did have to make a second jig as the first wasn't long enough when I got into the lower notes.
The author recommended starting with the lowest not moving up. After the Glockenspiel I started with the highest note and went down. I had to remove very little for the first note then just a little more for each one after that worked better for me.
Here is the difference in material removed. The short key is high C6 the long key is low C3. 37 Keys total 22 on the main board and 15 on the sharp board.

At this point everything is tuned to within 20 cents. Time to start on the resonators.

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