Some of you may have seen my post about helping kids make musical instruments:
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/forum/topics/i-get-to-help-kids-make-music-instruments-for-school
A quick recap: the kids have to do the work and we can't use anything premade or manufactured for the purpose (except strings), so no commercial tuning machines or pegs, no zither pins, etc.
One of my kids is a cello player and we are making a 2 string instrument. So far we have an oak neck mounted to a good sized box (~12x16). What I need are two tuning pegs that can be tuned on the fly by a kid, and strings. With the neck we have, the scale can be anything up to 32" so plenty of room there. When done it has to cover the following range (G Major (G2-G3), C2 - D4). It will be plucked, not played with a bow.
This is acoustic. Guitar strings should be fine for that range.
Is there something easier than eye bolts for the tuning pegs? I'm worried the kid will get nervous and have trouble fiddling with the nuts (no jokes please).
Tuning, the big question...The kid is already used to cello scale (27.5") so I'd like to stick with it. So I'm trying to figure out string size and tuning for G Major. I'm thinking the D and high E strings might work but I'm not sure, not my area of expertise.
Replies
I'd go with weed wacker line. Maybe you can just use tapered wooden tuner pegs, like on a violin or cello. Easy enough to make with a dowel and some sandpaper. Drill a hole in a larger dowel and glue it on as a knob to turn the tuner. Been working for centuries!
The tough part is making the tapered hole but I read a tip on using an old pair of scissors to ream it out.
Forget that stuff I wrote about string sizes earlier, what I'm trying to figure out is what size string I need to hit a C2 (2 octaves below middle C) note and after playing around on a 6 string earlier, I realized it will have to be a .056 or larger. I'm trying to use a string gauge calculator to figure out if I can do it with a guitar string or if I need bass strings but none of the calculators are really designed to work that way.
I think yer gonna need bass strings. Or weed whacker line. Can get colors in that stuff.
If you use weedwacker string, make sure it isn't the kind with cutting edges.
I thought of using weedwhacker string, I have a roll but wasn't sure how well it would hold tune or if it would be loud enough. Really I don't know much about it.
You can hit a C2 note on a guitar E string tuned loose but I'm not sure if that will still work with the longer scale length.
I used weedwacker line. there were a few things I learned using it. Over a 48 inch string length, I got about an inch of stretch over a period of two days. Going forward, I would try two different things. I would first hand the precut strings somewhere with weights on them to pull out some of the stretch, and second, as I mounted the strings, I would try heating them with a hair dryer, to add some stretch as they are tensioned, and the "pullback" would take in some of the slack. In theory, at least.
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Ok, thanks. I'll give that weed whacker string a try.
I made tuning pegs for a stand up bass recently. My method was as follows: I cut the center section of the neck out on the head section. I used a 3/8 oak dowel that went entirely through the top of the neck, with enough length for an inch on either side sticking out. On one side, I drilled 3/8 inch holes in the center of 3/4 inch dowels, cut into one inch slices. I glued these to one of the ends sticking out. Where the 3/8 dowel went into the wood of the neck-opposite of the 3/4 sections glued on, I drilled 1/8 holes through the neck and dowel. I also drilled one hole in each 3/8 dowel inside the cutout, staggering them across the pegs, so that these holes were not in line with the one above or below in the neck, this is where I ran my strings through.After fitting the strings, I tensioned them using the 1/8 dowels precut to fit into the holes opposite the wide sections of the pegs. I have a whole project picture that I can email/post if that would help. The project was actually much simpler than my explanation.
Yeah, I would like to see the pics too. I follow most of it but am confused by the 1/8" dowels.