Posted by George Durbin on August 26, 2011 at 9:43am
First batch of kalimbas to be offered for sale at the local flea market. They vary from 5- note to 15-note including some specifically for kids' hands. Sold (3) from this batch, which is great encouragement to refine the process!
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They're mostly stainless steel, altho some of the NOS I just got is galvanized. Amazing the tonal quality of that little piece of metal!
Haven't put a pickup in any of them yet, but probably will on some of the larger ones as I get ahead of myself on inventory. Don't have a lot of piezos right now and holding them back for the guitar/dulcimer builds.
What I'm doing is building kalimbas while waiting for glue, stain, sealant, whatever to dry on the string project in process at the moment. Keeps the flow going and I don't start wandering around annoying my wife (:>
I got my first set of spokes from the local bike shop - they had a wheel they had replaced for someone (the bike had fallen off the carrier and was dragged quite a ways) and just gave me the wheel. All I had to do was cut the spokes out, which was a simple process with small bolt cutters.
Then I stumbled across a real deal on ebay - someone had purchased old stock from a store that had closed 40 years ago and was in storage. Got 156 spokes for next to nothing - and I can get up to (3) twangers from each spoke, so I'm set for quite awhile.
Here's a link to a site that will consolidate your search. This one is for bike spokes, but I use it for machine tuners, cigar boxes and anything else I'm looking for on ebay.
These are great - I have box I've been saving for a kalimba, but haven't been able to stumble across anything for keys. Bike spokes are a good idea, there must be an old abandoned bike in a stream somewhere round here!
I'm using (3) different twangers: (1) bike spokes, using the flange ends first, then flattening the other end for the next one - and for some reason the flattened ones sound better; (2) metal lawn rake tines, galvanized, tempered and coated; (3) fish tape, which is a pain to work with and harder to tune but sounds good when you get it right.
I'm not really "tuning" them per se, I'm more just sounding them out to a pleasant scale that doesn't offend my (and wife's) ears. For the most part, I'm just cutting the twangers to 3mm difference in length and then mounting them in order. Seems to be working out (so far) anyway.
Since I'm building these for sale, I make them a little heavy on the bass and leave enough excess material that they can be tuned higher easily.
This was my first batch of boxes and most were Ashtons, so they look a lot alike. Got a new batch of boxes and there is a much wider selection of brands, so there are many more variations now. And when you add the "bling", they really look good.
Comments
They're mostly stainless steel, altho some of the NOS I just got is galvanized. Amazing the tonal quality of that little piece of metal!
Haven't put a pickup in any of them yet, but probably will on some of the larger ones as I get ahead of myself on inventory. Don't have a lot of piezos right now and holding them back for the guitar/dulcimer builds.
What I'm doing is building kalimbas while waiting for glue, stain, sealant, whatever to dry on the string project in process at the moment. Keeps the flow going and I don't start wandering around annoying my wife (:>
Good to see somebody else using bike spokes!
Are they steel ones?
I've made a few too... had good luck with steel spokes on big boxes.. they can sound good with a piezo inside too!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sterafilms/4389171452
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sterafilms/6085501386
I got my first set of spokes from the local bike shop - they had a wheel they had replaced for someone (the bike had fallen off the carrier and was dragged quite a ways) and just gave me the wheel. All I had to do was cut the spokes out, which was a simple process with small bolt cutters.
Then I stumbled across a real deal on ebay - someone had purchased old stock from a store that had closed 40 years ago and was in storage. Got 156 spokes for next to nothing - and I can get up to (3) twangers from each spoke, so I'm set for quite awhile.
Here's a link to a site that will consolidate your search. This one is for bike spokes, but I use it for machine tuners, cigar boxes and anything else I'm looking for on ebay.
http://picclick.com/?q=bicycle+spokes&minAsk=min+price&maxA...
I'm using (3) different twangers: (1) bike spokes, using the flange ends first, then flattening the other end for the next one - and for some reason the flattened ones sound better; (2) metal lawn rake tines, galvanized, tempered and coated; (3) fish tape, which is a pain to work with and harder to tune but sounds good when you get it right.
I'm not really "tuning" them per se, I'm more just sounding them out to a pleasant scale that doesn't offend my (and wife's) ears. For the most part, I'm just cutting the twangers to 3mm difference in length and then mounting them in order. Seems to be working out (so far) anyway.
Since I'm building these for sale, I make them a little heavy on the bass and leave enough excess material that they can be tuned higher easily.
This was my first batch of boxes and most were Ashtons, so they look a lot alike. Got a new batch of boxes and there is a much wider selection of brands, so there are many more variations now. And when you add the "bling", they really look good.