Safety

I was preparing more of the photos taken this weekend for upload to my Flickr account when I notice all the poor safety practices I have. Anytime you are using power equipment you should wear hearing and eye protection. The planer was loud enough to be heard inside of the house, which is about 25 feet away from the shop area. That day I did wear hearing protection. I have never been very good about eye protection. The glasses always get dusty and hard to see through. But it really hurts when you get saw dust or a splinter in your eye. I will try to set a better example with the remaining construction.

Another productive day

Even though is was still bitterly cold, and we had grocery shopping to do today, I managed to get some more done on the xylophone. Today I ripped the 6" board into 5 pieces each 1 3/16" wide. The wood is hard enough that it got some burn marks on the edges while being ripped, but they are really cool. Instead of turning black like oak or maple does sometimes, it is a really deep purple.

Then I used dad's home made router table to round off the corners. I did not round them much, mainly just trying to knock the sharp edges off. It took quite a while for me to get it up and ready. I finally had to ask dad to come out and show me all his little secrets. Router tables always make me nervous because the bit is spinning so fast that one little slip can really cause some problems. Most commercial router tables/shapers have some nice guards on them, but the guards can sometimes cause problems as well.Luckily it all went just fine.

Once that was all done, I was finally able to cut out my first "blank" It was 10 3/16" of an inch long and will be the A below middle C. I am only cutting one blank at a time in case I mess it up. If I tune it above the A, I can always cut it shorter and try for a higher note. It will probably be next weekend before I can drill the holes and cut the arch in the blank. Then I will have to make something for it to rest on so that I can begin the actual tuning process. To see more photos you can go to Xylophone Pictures.

IT HAS BEGUN

The holidays are over and there can be no more procrastinating. Today I began work on the xylophone. I have been a little nervous about trying to plane the thickness of the board I bought. The last time I used a thickness planer was my senior year of high school, and it was a large, stand alone, industrial planer. Luckily my dad has a Ryobi bench top thickness planer. I should not have been concerned, it was loud but did a great job. Purpleheart is very hard but the planer had no problem with it at all. I probably made about 8 passes to remove the 1/8" of thickness, turning the board over each time. It made a very pretty pile of purple wood chips, which we saved for some future art projects. The final product does not really look any different than when I started today, but it is now 5/8" of an inch thick instead of 3/4". Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to find the time to rip the 6" wide board into 4 boards that are each 1 3/16" wide, use the table router to round all the corners over a bit, and cut the first key to length.

Tuning

I have been pretty busy lately, busiest time of the year at work and just general goings on. I have not started any building yet, but have done some more reading. The book was about the tuning of percussion instruments and went in to a lot of the history and physics of the tuning process. I had to return the item to the library, and now can not remember the exact title, but it was mostly over my head anyway.What I did learn though may help me get a good crisp sound out of the xylophone.

Prior to the 1920s most percussion instruments were only tuned to their fundamental pitch. As the instruments began to be used more and more by professionals, there was a demand for a crisper sound and instrument makers began to tune the secondary pitch as well. There was a lot of math involved in determining the best shapes to use to get the best sound, but it can be applied fairly easily. After cutting the main arch into the blank, I will sand the middle area of the arch to bring the key to within 1/2 a step of being tuned. In other words, if I am trying to tune the key to C4, I will stop sanding the middle of the arch at C4#. The remainder of the tuning will be done at the "corners" of the arch. This will remove the uniformity of the arch, but is supposed to make a much cleaner note.

I will certainly put in some pictures of how this goes. I will be on vacation after Christmas and am hoping to get started on my first blank during that time. Hang in there and I will get a xylophone built.

Lumber and American Wordworker Magazine

I was very excited to get my lumber and magazine withing a day of each other. The lumber is a beautiful light purple in color, it is going to look fantastic. I am glad I ordered it though because I looked about getting more to make my wife a meditation bench and they are already out of it again! The wood is currently sitting in my house acclimating to the conditions before I begin planing it to final thickness. A few more days should do it.

The magazine arrived the day after the wood. The article/plans for the xylophone are by Raymond Levy and are wonderful. It is for a single octave xylophone (no half notes) made out of red oak. I plan on making a two octave xylophone (also with no half notes) with the purple heart wood I purchased. The dimensions are only a little different and I am sure can be used for most any hardwood you choose. The trick would be to leave the pieces a little long so you have room to shorten them while tuning.The thing I really like about his plans is the resonator box. I am definitely going to adapt it to work with the two octave xylophone I make.

My plan at this point is to plane down one of the two boards I purchased from 3/4" to 5/8". I will then rip the 6" board into 4 strips, each 1 3/16" wide. It took some figuring, but I should be able to cut all of my blanks out of these 4 strips. However, I purchased the second board in case there is trouble. I think I will only cut and tune one blank at a time, that way if I mess up in the tuning, I can use that blank for a higher pitched key and cut a new blank for the one I mess up. Hopefully by taking my time, I will not have to use any of the second board and I can use it to make the meditation bench.

Plans

I won the eBay auction for the December 1990 issue of American Woodworker. It contains plans for a wooden xylophone. Not sure what they will be like, but I should have the magazine by the end of the week. I have also ordered some purpleheart lumber for making the xylophone bars. It had been back ordered for a while so I ordered it as soon as it was available again. The kids have enjoyed playing the plastic tube xylophones. I may try making one out of metal pipe, but I haven't made up my mind for sure yet.

Weekend

Well it was way too nice to be making mallets Saturday night. We had a fire and watched the kids run around in the dark instead. Funny to listen to them try and convince themselves to hide behind the garage in the dark. Sunday night however was wet and cold. Perfect for working in the garage. I not only made the mallets, but put together two pvc xylophones to try out. I was worried about the super balls crumbling or breaking in half when I drilled holes in them, but there was no problem at all. I was using a bench top drill press that made it easier.

Since it is going to be a while before I can start on the wooden xylophone, I decided to try and make one out of pvc (two actually, one for each kid). I got the plans from the dso Kids website. Instead of just putting the pipes on the wooden frame, I borrowed from an old, 1950's era xylophone for kids. I drilled holes through the nodal points of the pvc pipe and suspended them on some strings. The turnbuckle on the end will let me tighten it up as the string stretches. The tubes are definitely in tune with each other, moving up the scale as the pipes get shorter. However, it still sounds like you are beating on some plastic pipes with a wooden mallet.

I am really hoping that the wooden one will end up sounding like a quality musical instrument. I am sure it will take lots of time and care, but if it sounds good it will be worth it.