This last Christmas saw me once again enter uncharted waters. I am not really one for repetition and so do not usually repeat projects. For Christmas, my wife wanted to get a small keyboard for my son. I am not much for electronics for kids and so suggested maybe a xylophone or... then I had the idea that would spawn yet another period of scratching my head in frustration. Little did I know at the time but this project would ruin many of my clothes and stain everything! I decided to make a marimba. I found the dimensions for keys and tuning info on a website from another DIY guy. Enter the plans and how to design this thing. I wanted it to be transportable but did not like the design of most of the portable marimbas that I could find.
Many of the DIY instruments out there use eye hooks to hold the cord that holds the keys. I am not a fan of the way that it looks. The other option seemed to be aluminum bar with a groove cut in the top and driven down into the cross pieces. I thought that this might not be a good idea on an instrument that a child plays with because then they are able to lift the keys off of the instrument which leads me to imagine many different scenarios, most of them not really a good thing. I also was not sure about my accuracy considering that these posts have to be driven in. I decided to go with angle aluminum so that it could be attached easily and would hold the keys and look good at the same time :) And of course I also included some rods from the photocopier as support for the cord. I sourced the cord from a window blinds place that carried the heavy cotton cord. I used a special Australian knock-down fastener for the frame that I found at Lee Valley tools.
The keys are paduak and the frame is rock maple. I wanted the instrument to have the styling of the large concert marimbas. Everything turned out right for the most part. There were several times when I had to walk away because of frustration. As with most of my projects I make mistakes and have to fix them in ways that I do not prefer. The marimba turned out really good and was fun to present at Christmas.
Created December 2013
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