Thread: Cajon, African Mahogany

The playing face, Tapa, is made with veneer covered ply.
I am putting two playing faces on this cajon. One glued and one screwed.

The veneer is 2mm bendable ply.

A cheaper Euc veneer is used as the backing veneer.

One face veneer is Huon Pine with a little birds eye.
The other is a Queensland Maple with a really nice wavy pattern.

Lots of Titebond II, plenty of clamps and wait for the sandwich to cure.

The first tapa came out of the glue up nicely.

I routed a shallow rebate in the sides of the box so the ply would sit flush with the sides.

Using the bearing guided router bit leaves rounded corners. I could have chiseled them square but find it easier to round the ply.

The ply face is trimmed on a table saw sled to match the rebate. I had made a lexan template with different diameter rounded corners. I used this to draw the rounded corners then shaped it with rasps and files.

The ply face is glued into the rebate, using scrap pieces of wood to get pressure along the edges.

Once it was dry I sanded the sides flush with the face.

I like the look of the flush fit with the contrasting timbers. Especially once it has a coat or four of Danish Oil/Poly mix.

Scally, that looks superb, the wood contrasts are excellent. Are you happy with the final sound you get?
I ask that because I made a couple of Tongue Drums and although most of the fingers gave a good quality sound, for some reason a couple I just could not tune.
Being absolutely tone deaf does not help either....

The loose tapa with a Queensland Maple veneer looks great.

This tapa is screwed to the sides of the box and over the snare strings. I found some brass screws with a curved head. They sit nicely in countersunk holes and no sharp edges.
The screws along the top are not screwed up tight so the tapa can slap against the timber sides when hit.

The whole box was sanded to #400 and given several coats of Danish Oil.

Finally, rubber feet are screwed to the base to make it more stable on hard floors.


Hi Ruddy, it sounds good. The thin ply helps give a deep base as long as the sound hole is big enough. Equivalent to a 100mm diameter circle works fine.

This cajon is based on one a friend brought back from Peru. It is a little bigger than the ones you normally see in music stores and Spain. I think it gives a bigger sound and more resonance.

Tongue drums are a different thing. Some pieces of timber just don't want to be tuned. Once you have worked out the dimensions of each tongue for a certain timber species, you should be able to fine tune them. When you change to a different timber species, you need to do test cuts to work out dimensions to get the notes you want.
If you make one that wont tune you can still enjoy the gentle sounds. Just make a note of the wood you used and avoid it for future drums.