These come with additional shop diagrams that we drew when creating the prototypes. These plans are provided by our business partner, Australian Woodsmith, and are based on the original Woodsmith plan. Hi Benjamin - I just googled it and found some info. For example, plywood is a little bit cheaper than mahogany or cedar. (L>aK(C6OfM3f@?0cf_Q:~/yw7<`dgw. Ninth step: Now its time to make the drum sticks that are eventually used to generate the sound by banging them against your wooden tongue drum. Once you have done that, you can start tuning your wooden tongue drum to be able to get that beautiful, authentic sound youre really hoping for. All of the information that you need to build our plans can be found in the standard plan. You could even use dovetails or finger joints. So, I set out to produce a video that explains everything you need to know about building tongue drums. 30mm. While gathering information about these drums, I noticed a lot of comments in woodworking forum threads like "I would build one but I don't know how to tune it." Two out of every three people searching the internet are looking for Steel Tongue drum info, so whilst I will cover both, this article is for Steel Tongue Drums, click here for Wooden Tongue, Read More Steel Tongue Drum Guide | (History, Scales, Price, Makers)Continue, This guide will provide some easy steps, hints, tips, and tricks to playing your new steel tongue drum, and getting most from your new instrument How to Play Steel Tongue Drum? This is the one you probably want if you are in the United States, and it is the one we have traditionally offered on this website. Fourth step: Grab the sandpaper and use it to smooth out the pattern on the wood. However, if you want even more granular detail to make your job easier, you should consider our premium plans. Steel Tongue Drum vs Handpan A Comparison, Steel Tongue Drum Guide | (History, Scales, Price, Makers), 6 Tongue Drums Uses (Meditation, Yoga & Self Help), Best Percussion Instruments For Kids [That you can play too], 7 Types of Kalimba (Inc Sansula, Electro & Array Mbira). Good quality wooden tongue drums easily cost several hundred dollars when you buy them online or at specialized music stores. You can achieve that by buying the wood in specialty stores or from privet salesmen. It's a lot harder to mill than most woods I've used. The idea behind the tongue drum is simple a hollow box, or sound chamber reverberates when the individual tongues, or soundboard, are struck. Ok, yeah, you have to make sure your printer setting is set to Actual Size, instead of Fit to Page or some other option. Plan the notes you want, and look up the frequency for each note here. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Note that this is a different board than the one that you used to saw a circle into. iSA Webs is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Check out part 2 of my tongue drum video tutorial series below: Determine the size of your drum and thickness of the wood you will be using. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Now it is time to take a listen to those tongues and see how close you are to your desired notes (frequencies). It uses millimeters, centimeters, and meters for measurement. Note: After your purchase, you will receive an email containing a PDF attachment of your purchased plan, as well as instructions for logging in to download the plan and access any other associated files and videos, which will all be located on this page. If you build one, please contact me and let me knowI'd love to hear about it! Or have you just not found the wooden tongue drum yet that matches your specific preferences completely? Next on the list are the bouncy balls. Very dense stuff and heavy. It comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes so there really is a very varied assortment. And will go on to explain, why this instrument is so good, how long it will last, and why it is better than some alternatives. Use thinner wood for smaller drums. I saw. This guide will run through the benefits of buying a Tongue drum for the kids. Wonder if cutting a sound hole in the bottom to allow resonance would make it louder? Once you have figured out how many tongues you need and their approximate lengths you can start designing the rest of your box. Popularity in both solo and group meditation is growing and the affordability of Tongue Drum makes it a perfect accompaniment for meditative sessions. Again, before actually drilling the holes, use your black marker to sketch the outline for where the holes should be on the wooden board. Sixth step: Gather your wood glue and use it to glue the six boards together until youve constructed a solid wooden box. First trace or layout your tongue design on the top piece of your box and drill some holes so you can start the cuts with your jigsaw. The brand of the wood glue doesnt matter, as long as it works efficiently. 30mm), 2 Small bouncy balls (with a diameter of ca. You can buy them online, but its better to see and feel the wood in person. I like using tung oil for a natural finish. However, keep in mind that if you dont already have access to your needed tools, you will have to spend more money to obtain them from DIY-stores or salesmen online. For the mentioned amount of money, you will already be able to get your hands on some good quality wood. I stumbled across the youtube link of building tongue drums. If you need to raise the frequency remove material from the tip of each tongue. For example, wood types like. (LogOut/ Pick up the drill and use it to make two little holes in the middle of the wooden board. Again, let dry for at least a day to guarantee optimal security and to prevent the balls and the dowels from falling apart. What is the best tongue drum for Kids? If you need to lower the frequency remove material from the base of each tongue. The techniques that go into making this drum are similar to those youd use for building a small box. The only requirement is a certain level of quality. This will help you determine if you need to raise or lower the pitch. However, this does not impact our recommendations.). The Design Process I Kinda Wanna Learn, How to Make and Tune a Tongue Drum Part 1 of 3 I Kinda Wanna Learn, Orient the grain on your end pieces in the vertical direction (might help with sustain idk I read that somewhere). You can use the calculated lengths to help layout a pattern for your drum. If you are unable to find exact wooden boards with the above-mentioned dimensions, you can purchase big planks of wood and trim to the required dimensions. Carry on with the sanding until every imperfection and bump is gone and the surface is perfectly even. Above in my blog post, I put links to all of my templates, documents, sites that I gathered and created. The same price goes for the rubber feet for the bottom of your wooden drum. Now that you have your top glued down to your box you can use a drill and a jigsaw to cut out your tongues. Then, you need to use the wood glue to stick the bouncy balls to the top of the wooden dowels. Help us spread the word about Woodsmith Plans & earn money at the same time. Thus, accuracy is essential! Finding this article, you may have zero knowledge of what either instrument, is does, or can do, and want to know more, or perhaps you already know a little and want, Read More Steel Tongue Drum vs Handpan A ComparisonContinue, The title of this article is Tongue Drums, so you may be searching for either wooden or steel tongue drum information. Warning: Your first tongue drum is not going to sound like a $500 pro produced instrument, but you will learn so much and hopefully have enough fun to try and try again until you perfect the process. Are you interested in playing the wooden tongue drum, but do the high retail prices hold you back from purchasing one online or in a music store? Remove the excess wood glue and then, make sure to let the wood glue dry for at least a day to make sure everything is solid and secure. They are also not very expensive seeing as the cost price ranges from 5$ tot 10$ at the most. The tone is varied by removing material from the back face of the toe or heel of each tongue. You can do it at your own pace. Dont rush the process because that will increase the chance of failure and having to start all over again. No matter what type of wood you use, or whether you tune it or not, you will end up with a nice fun-to-play drum. And because it's so heavy I think I'd want to try using thinner stuff to start so I don't wind up with too heavy a finished product. Instead, use a prudent, light touch, because the wood will be particularly vulnerable after the carving is done. Read this article to gain insight into how you can make your own personal tongue drum and your own mallets. I haven't actually made the wavy one, so one tip I received from someone is to alternate the tongues between large and small so no two similar length tongues are next to each otherapparently the notes would be close to each other and interfere with each other. 300mm and a diameter of ca. For your drum build with tongues on both sides, did you have glue blocks to thicken the ends? The difference with this project is that you get to play with it when youre done. [Solved!] I play a number of instruments and Ive recently got into building guitars. Thanks again; wonderful, informative video. Better safe than sorry, so just wait it out! I am referring to the the two pieces labeled (e) in the Wood Magazine plans. The long boards will be used as the sides of the percussion box and the shorter boards will be the ends of the percussion box. You can already buy some for about 2 to 4$ at the most. You have lots of options here but there are a couple of things to remember when building a box for a tongue drum: Need help thinking outside the box? This site is owned and operated by iSA Webs. Get to work and start crafting your own wooden tongue drum.
ac=wP+KFa!nfs 9lLje,W#(;`%I! Continue this motion until there isnt any unevenness left and everything is silky smooth. The bottom line is that you need to be very careful while executing this step, or it may be so that you will have to start all over. The Muslady 5.5 Inch Mini 8-Tone, Read More Why a Tongue Drum is a GREAT IDEA for your kids AND YOU!Continue, Its not a war, just a comparison between the handpan instrument and the similar but at the same time very different steel tongue drum. There is a very big assortment of types of wood in the wood market, but if you dont know which type to choose, there are some types of wood that you automatically should look out for. Once you have a rough idea in mind plan out the tuning of your drum. First, you need to make a hole in each bouncy ball and the holes need to have the same width as the wooden dowels. Making A Tongue Drum Musical! (LogOut/ (The Easy Answer), 4 Wooden boards (dimension: 450mm x 130mm x 20mm), 2 Wooden boards (dimension: 90mm x 130mm x 20mm), 2 Wooden dowels(length of ca. After that, the drum mallets will instantly be ready to use. 70mm). But what are the best percussion instrument for kids Tambourines Shakers Xylophone Tongue Drums Bongos Throughout this guide, I will explore the different scenarios and considerations, Read More Best Percussion Instruments For Kids [That you can play too]Continue. Fifth step: Look at the two shorter wooden boards and choose one of them for this step, it doesnt matter which one. 3/8" is pretty thin. The patterns didn't print full size so I've cut them nicely but about 3/4" too short. First write down the frequency of each tongue before tuning. You can make one or all four in a weekend. Why not? With a little knowledge and skill, it is possible for anyone to make a wooden tongue drum. This will also increase the overall aesthetic factor of your wooden tongue drum. Since you are an affiliate, you can use this url to link people to this page and get credited for it: If you want to use an image thumbnail link, you can copy and paste something like this into the source code of your page: Woodsmith Plans provides hundreds of high-quality, shop-tested plans for makers of all skill levels to build projects for their home, workshop, or give as gifts. Download My Free Tongue Pattern Templates. That way, you can make your wooden tongue drum really stand out from other wooden drums and truly make it your own. I'll extend them. I'm in Seattle and it's made not so far from me so I kind of expect everyone to know what it is when it's probably not so common in New Hampshire or Florida. Voila, With the end of the article, you have reached the end of this guide! Thoughts? Look up the tongue pattern that you need for your wooden tongue drum. Check out our Editors recommendations for project supplies and hardware. That way the bouncy balls and the wooden dowels will fit perfectly in each other. However, dimensions and other elements of the plan may vary between the metric and standard versions. The best Tongue Drum for meditation will be portable and tuned to a harmonic scale, able to be, Read More 6 Tongue Drums Uses (Meditation, Yoga & Self Help)Continue, The percussion family is the traditional musical destination when selecting the first instrument for a child. On this design, I opted for form over function and made the tongues symmetrical in appearance. the reason for this is that the holes will be used to store your wooden drum sticks when youre not using them. You can save a lot of money this way, but the amount of money that you will ultimately spend depends on whether you already have access to the needed tools, namely the saw, wood chisel, and the drill. Now that you personally handcrafted your wooden tongue drum, its time to talk about one of the greatest advantages of constructing your own musical instruments, namely all the costs you avoid by making the wooden tongue drum yourself. Apply pressure on the sandpaper with your hand and go back and forth over the surface of the wooden box a couple of times. Where did you research. The United States Customary System of Units (USCS or USC), more commonly referred to as the English or Imperial system, is the standard set of units for our plans. Steel tongue drums can be played by both hands or mallets. For example, you could use wool or other kinds of fabrics and shape it in the form of little balls and then glue them onto the wooden dowels. With a little bit of calculating work, the grand total for your handcrafted wooden tongue drum thus comes on a price of 55$ to 85$, depending on how much money you personally want to spend. With those types, you cant really go wrong and thus you are recommended to use them. Each rubber feet must go into a corner of the box. If all has gone to plan you should have a box without a bottom and some beautiful tongues cut into the top. Make sure the shape truly resembles the shape of a circle, because this is very important for the quality of the sound that your wooden tongue drum will eventually produce. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. ), Content 2016 Steve Carmichael, The Carmichael Workshop, All Rights Reserved. Change). After you attach the bottom I recommend putting some rubber feet on the drum as this really can improve the sound. It uses inches and feet for measurement. Carefulness is truly a must, everything must fit perfectly and all the ends must add up! I've been grabbing used boxes that seemed to have some resonance as is.. in hopes of one day, maybe, stepping over the precipice to make a tongue drum. After gluing the rubber feet on the bottom of the wooden box, you must again remove the excess wood glue and make sure to let it rest for at least one day to make sure the rubber feet dont come loose. No thanks, I'm not interested in the Woodsmith Plans Affiliate Program, 9 printable (digital) pages of step-by-step instructions, Over 45 full-color photos and illustrations and exploded views. If you can hold up a piece by the corner, you could knock on it to see if it has any ring to it. 70mm in the middle of the wooden board. That leaves some space for mistakes so it may help to ease your mind if needed to be. Remember if you glue on the bottom there is no turning back. The International System of Units (SI), more commonly referred to as the metric system, is the alternative set of units that we have available for some of our plans. What is a wooden tongue drum? Once you have all your notes picked out use the following formula to calculate the length of each tongue: If you need some help figuring out this formula dont worry! I have seen some builds with and most without. In specialized music stores, its possible that the price for the rubber feet will be a little bit higher, but if you keep searching, youll easily find cheaper ones. If you plan to add curves or changes of width try to adjust the length accordingly so that you stay close to your desired frequency (some fine tuning will still be required). Also can you give the notes they each should play??Thanks? Dont use too much pressure while wielding the sandpaper. or "Where is a plan for the tongues?" Specifically, theres always the option of renting them for a certain amount of time. Eighth step: Assemble the four rubber feet and use the wood glue to stick the rubber feet to the bottom of your self-made wooden box. You can download the additional shop drawings that you purchased using the link in this box. :). The details give this shelf its distinctive look and offer some interesting woodworking. I have some scraps of 3/8" Paperstone countertop material, nearly 18 sq ft. Been thinking for quite some time it would be nice to use some of it for some fun, unusual project. Paperstone is a countertop material made from many thin layers of paper bonded together with, I believe, some kind of plastic resin. I have done the work for you. All are adequate for constructing wooden musical instruments. With a little bit of research on existing bargains, you probably can get the materials you need for less money or you can pay even more money if you want to further increase the quality of your wooden musical instrument, its your own choice! iSA Webs may also in the future participate in other affiliate programs including Masterclass. This is the one you probably want if you are outside the United States. I don't know the notes until after I make one, then I just tune to the closest notes wherever they fall. This step is very important because the pattern will eventually be responsible for the tuning of your wooden tongue drum and thus its responsible for the sound that your handcrafted instrument will generate.