Back to work...

It has been a long time since I posted here. Unfortunately, it has also been a few weeks since I got any significant work done on the Marimba. I have been busy over the last few weeks with the Robotics, which will continue for the next six weeks, though I will be able to do some work on the marimba now that the competition is over. Also, my grandparents are in town this week which will enable me to get more work done faster with the assistance of my grandpa.

Phase 3 complete

its been a while since I posted here. this is because I haven't done alot of work on the marimba for the last month. this is soon to change, as the winter break will be a good chance to get more work done. next on the list is to create some sort of plug for the resonators and cut them to length... more to come.

Phase 3:

PERSONAL PROJECT PHASE THREE

Neil Merchant

12/8/2010

To complete my personal project, I used a variety of different designs and strategies.

At the outset of the project, I did not have any clear idea of what I wanted the final project to look like. Even without having a clear, accurate vision of what the final project was going to be like, it was still quite possible because the majority of the guides that I had looked at used the same general dimensions for the bars. Having said that, the first three keys that I cut were unusable because their dimensions do not fit well with any of the final dimensions that we used for the keys, so I am planning to use them either as backups in case any of the keys get damaged or lost, or as models for demonstration purposes of the various stages involved in realising this project. When I finally found the guide from makeamarimba.com, I decided to use that particular plan because of the extent that the guide described how to actually build the marimba—especially the frame—even though I originally did not like the way the marimba described in the guide looked. Originally I had intended to make a marimba with a much more triangular frame, but after finding the aforementioned guide I decided to switch to a design that was more of a combination of the type laid out there and my original plan. An important point to consider is that this is the first marimba I have ever built, so having a guide that contains some detail is very helpful in meeting the deadline that I have for the project, and makes it much easier to realise the final project.

In terms of materials, I had a few choices, a few of which would have had a major effect on my final result. The first material choice that I shall detail here is the choice of wood for the bars. I chose to use padauk[1] for the bars for a variety of reasons: it is recommended by many of the sources that I used, it is a very hard wood (helping it to create a nice sound when struck) and it is relatively inexpensive compared to other similar woods. Aside from this, it is used in many commercial instruments. In terms of marimbas, it is one step down from rosewood which is well known as one of the best woods available for marimbas. Unlike padauk, however, rosewood is very expensive, putting it out of my range for this instrument. Aside from this, padauk just looks good because of its intense color and grain patterns.

Another choice that was similar to the padauk is the material for the frame; I chose to use oak. The main reason for this is, to quote Sir Edmund Hillary, “because it’s there”. Earlier, an oak tree that was standing in the front yard of my house had been knocked down in a wind storm. Instead of burning or shredding the wood, however, we had it made into planks in the hope that sometime in the future we could use it for something. The marimba provided a convenient way to use this wood. I preferred to use this wood for several reasons: I would rather use local wood instead of shipping it from somewhere else, and because it is cheaper to use something I already had than to go and buy more from somewhere else. As well, I found it interesting to be able to turn raw materials (eg. Logs) into something refined. The final reason for using oak is the same as the padauk; the combination of the very light wood of the oak and the dark red wood of the padauk. the similarities in the woodgrain also add to the effect. The final material choice that I will describe here is the resonators. For the resonators, I decided to use two different types of pipe: PVC and ABS. the PVC is used for the larger pipes, where the ABS is used for the smaller because it comes in more convenient sizes.

In terms of design changes, I went through several during the process of creating this marimba, most due to material or tool-related problems. As I described before, the frame of the marimba went through several different versions before settling on one final version. As well, I have had problems with jointers. Throughout the process of creating the frame, I have managed to break three jointers, two with in the first five minutes of use. I believe this was due to a problem in the manufacture of the tools, but it set me back quite a while regardless. Another unintentional change of method was predrilling. At the beginning, I intended to use three separate drill bits to drill each hole; one thinner long one, one shorter thicker one, and one countersink. This plan quickly changed for two reasons: one, it would take way more time than I have to drill every hole this many times, and two, I found a single drill bit that tapered to a countersink, allowing me to drill each hole only once. The final major design change that I went through was the caps for the pipe. Originally I intended to use PVC pipe caps and PVC glue to seal the resonators, but this system has two major disadvantages. PVC glue is a risky thing to use because it will bond the two pieces of plastic in around 10 seconds. This is a bad thing because it does not allow much time to get the tuning of the pipes right. Aside from that, PVC caps cost about $2 each, making the total price for all of them that I would need greater than the total cost of the keys themselves. This is unacceptable. I have a few ideas for what I will use to seal the pipes, but as of yet do not have a final design prepared.

I am finding this project particularly satisfying to complete. It is very satisfying to be able to take a rough plank of wood (the form that the padauk was in) and turn it into a key, which can create a beautiful sound. As well, I have learned a variety of new skills during the process of creating the marimba: how to properly operate a variety of sanders, how to use a tuner, how to cut plastic pipe, and how to use a variety of power saws.

Throughout the project, there were several happenings which made it difficult to stay on track. Even with these problems, however, I have managed to keep to an approximate schedule and am on track to finish the project in time.

---

[1] The spelling of this word is debatable. I choose to spell it with an –auk; it is also correct to spell it –ouk or –oak.

Stage 2- Final Version

Annotated Bibliography

            Neil

Banek, Reinhold, and Jon Scoville. Sound Designs. Berkeley: Ten Speed, 1980. Print. this is the book that i used as one of my first resources. it was a good first guide, but most of the information in it is obsolete by now because of its age. There is, however, some useful information about the different types of wood, how to cut them, and which ones make the best sound.

“Build Your Own Marimba and Wrap Your Own Mallets!” Instructables. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. . This website is perhaps the most useful to me for this project. it was the first inspiration for it, and has continued to be something that I refer to whenever I am uncertain about something, as it contains good information about everything concerning marimbas apart from the frame, which it did not give a detailed description of.

Grealy, Boyd. Personal interview. 9 Oct. 2010. Though I probably didn’t use this resource as effectively as I could have, Mr. Grealy was still helpful in learning how to construct the resonators. Because of the astronomical price of PVC pipe caps, (1-2 dollars each) it is impractical to use these as the price would be higher than the pipes themselves.. Mr. Grealy was helpful with his explanation of how this is done on the marimbas at school, specifically how to seal a cap and get the distinctive buzz of a marimba.

La Favre, Jeffery. “The La Favre 5-Octave Marimba.” The La Favre 5 Octave Marimba. N.p., 2007. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. . I used this site for several purposes: figuring out the rough dimensions of the bars and arches, figuring out the length and diameters of the resonators, and help finding the nodes of the bars. It was also an interesting demonstration of what can be done with this sort of a project given enough time and resources.

Ludin-Scheer, Bonny. “Our Bass Marimba.” Crafty Music Teachers. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. . this website was one of the other early ones for me. It often seems to be just a pitch for a book, but it does have some value in terms of the choices about wood, and was one of my first resources related to wrapping mallets. As well, it has interesting information pertaining to how to protect the bars of a marimba against sun and weathering.

“Marimba.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., 17 Oct. 2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2010. . This is a very basic article on the marimba, as one would expect from Wikipedia. It is helpful, however, for providing a rough outline of the history of the marimba. It does not have information pertaining to the construction of the marimba.

McCarthy, Jim. “Project 3.” N.d. PDF file. This document is the main guide that I’m using to build the marimba. it is a semi complete guide to building a marimba, including the frame, keys, and resonators. it comes from the website www.makeamarimba.com. It is pitched as a standalone guide, however it is missing some key information about the sizes of keys and resonators.

- - -. Super Fast Marimba Building. YouTube. N.p., 29 Nov. 2007. Web. 29 Oct. 2010. . This video is a demonstration of how to build the marimba described in the previous reference. It is very useful as a companion to the above guide.

Seburn, Leonard. Personal interview. 22 Aug. 2010. One of the greatest resources available to me was Mr. Seburn. Not only did he share his substantial knowledge of woodworking (including how to use a band saw, the bets ways for sanding away wood, and how to use a planer), but he allowed me the use of his entire workshop for the tuning of the keys. He was also helpful for acquiring tools; we borrowed a planer from one of his carving friends.

Seburn, Ruth. Personal interview. 11 Aug. 2010. Though not a major source, Ruth was a resource about the different types of wool available, and the best ones to use for wrapping the mallets.

Alright, Good news-Bad news time...

The title says it all.
the good news is that I lined up the keys on the frame to get an idea of how it would all fit together, and it looks great.
the bad news is that I appear to be missing a key...

also, the other day we got the aluminum struts for holding up the resonators, and the eyelets for supporting the bars:

Stage 2- another work in progress

 Annotated Bibliography

Banek, Reinhold, and Jon Scoville. Sound Designs. Berkeley: Ten Speed, 1980. Print. this is the book that i used as one of my first resources. it was a good first guide, but most of the information in it is obsolete by now.

“Build Your Own Marimba and Wrap Your Own Mallets!” Instructables. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. . This website is prehaps the most useful to me for this project. it was the first inspiration for it, and has continued to be something that I refer to whenever I am uncertain about something.

La Favre, Jeffery. “The La Favre 5-Octave Marimba.” The La Favre 5 Octave Marimba. N.p., 2007. Web. 15 Sept. 2010. . I used this site for several purposes: figuring out the rough dimensions of the bars and arches, figuring out the length and diameters of the resonators, and help finding the nodes of the bars.

Ludin-Scheer, Bonny. “Our Bass Marimba.” Crafty Music Teachers. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2010. . this website was one of the other early ones for me. It often seems to be just a pitch for a book, but it does have some value in terms of the choices about wood, and was one of my first resources related to wrapping mallets.

McCarthy, Jim. “Project 3.” N.d. PDF file. This document is the main guide that i’m using to build the marimba. it is a semi complete guide to building a marimba, including the frame, keys, and resonators. it comes from the website www.makeamarimba.com.

this is my current stage 2. i'm not certain how to cite primary resources (such as grandparents), so I still need to add that. aside from that, however, I think its pretty much done. Feedback?

Back again

just came back from a weekend trip to the island, where i took the opportunity to use grandpa's workshop again to finalize the tuning of all the notes. it went pretty smoothly, as they were all (with the exception of one) within about 30 cents of the target note. By now they are all at max 1-3 cents out; the accepted range of deviation is about 20 cents. unfortunatly, i don't have any pictures, as the camera was forgotten at home.

Random thoughts

In connections today we have a little time to write in the process journal. I am going to use this time to detail some of the projects I have going on related to the personal project.

One of the things that you will notice on this blog near the top is a small blue box containing a few ads. I have placed those there because for every click I get a few cents. it may not seem like much, but it actually adds up fairly quickly. Because I have 3 blogs that I am maintaining right now, (and likely a fourth coming soon) I can get a steady stream of income from these ads. I also have an agreement with Conrad so that my ads display on his blog, and we can both profit from them. Google will send a cheque in the mail once the earnings reach 100, and half will go to Conrad and half to me. The main objective of these ads is to earn a little money to help finance the project, because the  cost of good, straight grained padauk can be considerable. and on the topic of padauk, I have a few small notes that were scribbled on a piece of paper while I was tuning:

1. the first note I tuned was also the highest, C6. the thing about tuning, however is that every note starts high; as you carve or sand wood out of the bottom the tone gets lower. to measure this, I used a small chromatic tuner, acquired at Long & McQuade for about 20 dollars, a good price for a tuner of this caliber. 

2. as I was tuning, I tried to always keep the notes a little sharp in order to prevent the drilling of holes in them later from ruining the tuning. They will all need to have the tuning finalized later.

3. If you accidentally tune a note too far, it is possible to correct it by cutting wood off the ends. If you do this too much, however, the marimba will look terrible because the keys will not be be even. Also, if you go way over, it is possible that you would be unable to use the key because it wouldn't fit on the frame.

4. back on the subject of that first key, when I was tuning it it started an octave high. the first bit of sanding took it down to an A6. the next bit took it as far as a D#. unfortunately, the next bit if sanding took it down too far, to a Bb. This was quite discouraging, and meant that I had to remove some wood from the ends of the bar. This can pose quite a problem, because if you don't take the wood off evenly from both sides, it can badly distort the sound that the bar gives off. To remove the excess wood on this key, I used two tools, and later a third; at first a belt and disc sander, and later a bandsaw. long story short, I managed to bring the tune of the bar back up to where it belonged. the following image shows the first set of keys:

as you can see, the B and the G (second and fourth from the top) have both had to be shortened quite a bit. This is an early picture (as you can see from the date in the corner), and I later used some spare pieces of wood to replace these two notes with ones that were a more appropriate length. 

Aside from all that, you can also see that on all of the notes except for the C there are several pencil markings. these markings show about where the curve should be because it took way too long too sand away all that padauk. If I had not reverted to the bandsaw, I would still be tuning the notes today.

Every morning I would have the same conversation: 

 Neighbor: What was all that noise?

Me:  Just a woodworking project.

Neighbor: Cool. What're you making? 

Me: dust mostly. it comes in two colors right now: white and orange.

Amazingly, I only shredded one fingernail during the entire Tuning process!

Well, thats all for now. I have an advisor meeting in about half an hour.  Over and out, 

Neil

The cost of mistakes...

This is what happens when you need to saw apart a joint because it isn't square:

 on the other hand, I put a couple of keys on the frame before bolting it together, and they look awesome, apart from the dust:

a couple of other things:

1. Rona has eyelets at 2.34 for 10. Lee Valley has them for 2.10 for 100. the eyelets are what hold up the bars.
2. the next step is either to create the resonators or attach the bars to the frame.
3. sooner or later, we've got to have an advisor meeting...

Frame Pictures

Acorn or wing, that is the question...

when all else fails, try to use a drill press.

it is hard to drill straight through a screw.

precision saw.

the almost finished frame.

Blog update

just a short update; The frame is finally finished. I have updated the process pictures gadget at the bottom of this page; it should show actual pictures from the marimba now instead of cats. unfortunately, flickr wont let me upload more than 100 mb worth of pictures; I'm working on that.

More work

since the last post I have accomplished a grand total of Two pieces of wood put together. for some reason it took 4 tries to do this successfully:

1. the first time, I broke a screw.
2. the second time, I put it on backwards.
3. the third time,  I broke the screwhead, AGAIN.
4. The fourth time, all the continuous redrilling had put the nails out of square.
5. the fifth time, it finally worked the way it should.

Back at school

 

This is My first post since getting back to school. Because I've just got Microsoft Word 2010, I'm going to try to post from it. So here goes nothing…

 

It's only been 4 days, but I'm already feeling very tired. Despite this, I still managed to get some work done yesterday; the wood for the first A-frame is ready for use. No pictures yet, because there isn't much to take pictures of. More coming over the weekend.

frame, and more thoughts

so now the frame ends are done:

we went to the island for a weekend, and got the rest of the wood planed.
so far, things broken:
3 jointers

1 drill bit

Choose your weapon-the two random orbital sanders I used.

brushing the sawdust off a drill hole on the small end section

using the belt sander.

the regular working area-beginning of the small end

it wasn't me: what a mess

so the next thing to do is the A-frames to hold the keys. back to school tomorrow- blargh. I hate mornings.

couple pics/thoughts

this is dad and I ripping a piece of oak.you can see the dust in the air.

the second of two trees in front of our house: the other one fell down, and is now part of my marimba.

The new, smaller video's

These two actually work. the first one is solely sanding, the second is the better one, with an example of the sound.

it is much easier to upload a 6 megabyte file. the previous one was 63.

a couple video's

the top bar is recycled oak from a tree that was falling over in our yard, and the bottom is a spare slice of padauk. the oak will be the wood I use for the frame. I like the contrast between these two woods.

these are just a couple short videos I made because I got very bored tuning:

a few thoughts:

• sanding was fun, but got very tedious.
• I really enjoyed working with grandpa. 
• dad's jointer it horribly bad at staying square.
• i think when this is over I will never get all the red dust out of my ears.
• padouk smells strangely good.
• oak + padouk = stunning marimba.
• video's take a LOOOOOOOOONG time to upload.
• mallets are easy and fun to make, provided you don't accidentally snap the needle.

it is a good idea to make 4 of each type of mallet, two for each hand.

I will shrink the video, and try to upload it tmrw.

mallets, and first bar

yesterday a few days ago I wrapped the first pair of mallets. it was easier than I thought it would be, so I think i will make a second pair of mallets with harder cores. as well, I tuned the first bar of the marimba, C6. over the last couple of days I borrowed a planer from a member of my grandpa's carving club, and with his assistance at first, used it:

the dial on the side will make the internal blades raise or lower.

Grandpa hands me an unplaned key, and I feed them through. note the extreme amount of dust; it is impossible to breathe without the mask.

before planing

after planing

drilling a hole in a rubber ball, the first part of making a mallet

the ball next to a bar for size reference

rubber bouncyballs are 1.25 for 12 at the dollar store.

everything else I need to make mallets

two completed mallets

the bar tuning testing station

seven bars; one days work.

15 bars; the rest of the whole tones

it looks messier than it is. this is the workshop that I have been spending my holiday in.

this is the reason I have not yet drowned in red dust.

more roughly tuned bars. 

sanding.

crowning a mallet; the red ones are with rubber cores, and the blue ones are with wooden balls.

sanding on the spindle.