Thread: Xylophone plans

Boy that is a big topic. Even though a xylophone has wooden keys, it isn't really a woodworking project.

Your biggest problems will be sourcing appropriate timber with the correct tonal properties and then tuning it.


Good luck in your endeavour. Don't let me put you off having a go. If you do pull it off, have a go at a marimba. They really have a beautiful sound.

What's the difference between a xylophone and a vibraphone?

I've often wondered.

http://www.vosa.org/paul/sales_folder/marimba_make.htm

Make your own marimba has all the info you'll require, and there are a plans for mini-marimba which will pass for a xylophone. I've got the keys cut for mine, I'm using 19mm hardwood flooring.

It won't be a concert standard instrument, it's designed for primary school children, but it'll make a nice sound and the tuning is pretty simple as these things go.

Buy the book and enjoy yourself.

Cheers,

P
Craig, I'll get back to you in a few weeks on the vibraphone thing!

Well for a start, a vibraphone has metal keys. There is also a small electric motor driving two shafts. One shaft over each over the "black" and the "white" notes. These shafts have small circular shaped "flaps" (I don't know the technical name) that are over the "tubes" (same again with the technical names). This causes the vibrato effect and hence the name vibraphone.

That said, I've heard a lot of players that never use the vibrato effect.

Probably the best known player that I know of was Lionel Hampton. I'm sure there are many other great players of this instrument but I don't know them.

I've heard of people using New Guinea Rosewood for the keys. The stuff rings like a bell.

Thanks guys I'm off and running, I'll keep you posted

A good source of info is the book Marimba Bar Fabrication and Tuning by Chris Banta (Funhouse Press). It has the technical info required for both xylophones and marimbas ( the main difference being how the harmonics are tuned ). The biggest difficulty is not finding timber, but tuning. Lots of time and patience needed. Access to a strobe tuner helps too.
Timber of choice is Honduras Rosewood. Good luck getting any though. Next best is African Padauk. Then Bubinga, Purpleheart, Macacauba and She Oak.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by tcowdroy

A good source of info is the book Marimba Bar Fabrication and Tuning by Chris Banta (Funhouse Press).

I tried to locate a copy of the book in North America without success. Is it available from someone in Australia?

Edited to add:
Looked under the author's name and found it over here.

Making and tuning Marimba bars is pretty straight forward...

Make some beaters first,(superball and dowelling) then a soundbox for tuning (see pics...)

Any of the rosewoods are great but spruce works too if you make the bars big enough...
Bamboo of course is one of the best materials...

Tuning: make your bar... find your nodes... (rest the bar on the soundbox, sprinkle iron filings, sawdust, whatever, about one third from the ends of the bar, tap the bar gently until you find out where the filings don't move... this is your node...the place where the vibrations in the bar cancel each other out)

Drill a hole through the nodes... Place the nodes on the bars of the soundbox (the bars are padded with a strip of compressed foam sleeping mat... should be felt... the bars are free to move back and forth along the sound box... I just cut an "H" out of thick MDF)

Start beating... Sharpen by taking material off the length... Flatten by taking material away underneath the middle...

If you are using a very heavy and dense timber, thin down the middle and ends of the bar before tuning..(not the nodes though, leave them full thickness...) too heavy will kill the sound.

Set up using some kind of pin covered with surgical tubing... put a piece under the bar, across the pin to support it...

When you have finished the Marimba make some simple resonators out of plastic pipe... you will be amazed...

Good luck...