Strings and Tines on Strings And Tines

Volleyball Stats Tracker

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Weather Hologram

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

--°C

Inspiration and code from here. Pics of the project coming soon!

Cornhole Score Tracker

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Team 1

Current Round

Overall Score

Team 2

Current Round

Overall Score

Shirts

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My wife got a Cricut to make various crafts. I discovered that you can buy vinyl sheets that adhere to fabric with heat…basically an iron-on but a bit better quality. After getting the bug to make shirts I discovered sublimation printing, which lets you use a printer and special inks to make more intricate designs. Here are the shirts I have made.

Cricut Vynil
#

I could just buy a shirt with the name of my kids’ school sports teams, or I could make my own mimicking the Thrasher magazine logo. You won’t be surprised to learn which option I went with.

Wood Projects

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here are various wood projects I have made.

I used a bunch of scrap wood to make this wall protector or our dartboard. Though I should have made it 10 feet on each side, because that’s how bad we are at darts.

Wall protector for dart board. Added holes to store the darts

A skateboard that was really popular in the 80’s was the Vision Psycho Stick. My daughter painted this with paint pens on a random skateboard.

Psycho Stick skateboard

Woodburning

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here are various woodburning projects.

I made this sign from the seat of an old chair. It hangs at our site when we go camping

Camping sign

Growing up in the 80’s I always wanted this Zorlac Metallica skateboard with art by Pushead. So I made my own!

Metallica skateboard

This is my first attempt at woodburning. Already had the Strings and Tines branding thought out.

Strings and Tines skateboard

LED Macro Pad

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Macro Pads are great for running programs or performing other actions at the touch of a button. They sell some on Amazon, but from the reviews I didn’t get the impression that I could do a lot of customizing, particularly on Linux, which is where I wanted to use one. So I made one with a Teensy microcontroller, 6 buttons and a rotary encoder to control the volume. You can get a copy of the code in my GitHub repo.

Casio AE-1300 mod

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I got this watch as a gift from my grandkids for Christmas 2024. The only mod I did was to erase all the lettering on the case and faceplate except for the word Casio, just like I did for my Casio Royale mod. Fun fact, the two watches have modules that are the same size and cases that are the same shape, so you can swap them around for an additional mod.

The Printable Watch

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I found this website The Printable Watch that offers files you can download and print your own watch case. I thought this was the coolest idea, and bought a whole kit.

I don’t have a 3D printer, so I hired Connor The Maker to print it for me. I had met him at the Rochester Maker Faire, where he was displaying projects he had made. He was a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology and had started this 3D printing side business, so I was happy to help out a young engineering student.

Command Center

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction
#

Being a parent of teenagers means there are a lot of activities to coordinate. I always wanted an interactive calendar to hang on the wall so my wife and I could have a real time view of what activities were happening on any particular day. I had looked online for pre-built options, but they were way too expensive. So I decided to make my own!

Info Orbs

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As soon as I saw this Info Orbs kit by Brett.tech, I wanted to get it. Not only does it look cool, but you get to put it together. Also, you can code just about anything you want to add to the display. Powered by a ESP32 microcontroller, it displays the weather, stock info, and a clock in a couple of styles. So far I have made a couple of custom clocks, but am looking forward to digging into the code to make other data displays.

Solarcan

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Technically I didn’t make this camera, but I like the process of taking the picture. The Solarcan is essentially a pinhole camera that you set up for a long period of time to capture the sun’s path across the sky each day. You basically mount it somewhere and remove the small piece of tape covering the pinhole. This starts the exposure. After the desired length of time, you cover the pinhole and take it down. Then you scan the paper since the exposure will continue to happen as long as light hits the paper. I did tweak the contrast a bit in GIMP to make the dark parts darker.

Alexa Lamp

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I had this Alexa smart speaker (first gen I think) that would no longer work. I thought it would make a cool lamp, so I gutted it and added a LED lamp inside. I softened the light coming out a bit by adding some difusser I got from taking apart an old TV over the grid portion of the lamp. I also added rubber feet to keep it raised a bit, which casts a glow under the lamp. It’s not going to light up the whole room, but it acts as a nice accent piece.

Casio Tide Moon Graph gel mods

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Continuing with my obsession with modifying cheap Casio digital watches, I found this one at Walmart.

What a steal!

Casio loves printing words on their watches

After getting it home I realized that most of the lettering on the case was embossed, so I would not be able to erase it with my trusty white eraser. I did get the words on the top and bottom to come off, but they left behind a shadow of the lettering.

Slightly less words on the case

Casio Royale Negative mod plus Logo

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I got interested in the Casio digital watch modifying scene after seeing a YouTube video by Adam Savage where he showed one of these Casio Royale (model AE-1200) watches that was modded to have a NASA theme. I had not worn a watch in over a decade, but immediately became fascinated with this hobby. You mean I can open up this watch and change what it looks like? Sign me up! Here’s what the watch looks like out of the box:

So much text!!!

Kodak Tourist Box Camera

Sun, 22 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

An old Kodak Tourist camera served as the inspiration for this project, its design featuring a direct, unobstructed path from lens to film plane. This inherent characteristic sparked an idea: could it capture images much like a Cardboard Camera?

Instead of crafting another cardboard box, I looked for another container. An old silverware box proved to be the perfect candidate. Its contents removed, I painted the interior black to optimize light conditions. A precisely cut hole allows the camera to peek out of the box maintaining light-tightness as much as possible.

Electronic Hang Drum

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I have loved the sound of the Hang Drum for quite some time. Having no interest in paying thousands of dollars for one, I thought about making an electronic version of one. My first attempt at it was years ago with an Arduino, but I ran into problems getting all the buttons to work. So I tucked the idea in a far corner of my brain. Recently I learned of a board called a WAV Trigger, which essentially plays up to 16 sounds in WAV format, triggered by buttons. This was exactly what I needed! At that point my brain started thinking about how I could do it. We had this large bowl that my wife almost threw out. As soon as I saw it I knew it would be the perfect shape. I got some arcade buttons, a spare speaker from my collection of random speakers, a power supply harvested from an old sleep noise machine, and got to work on assembling it. To hold the lid with all the buttons in place I used two bourbon bottle stoppers and hair ties. I later added two additional stoppers (not pictured) since the top was moving around a lot. It was a bit more involved to get it done, but in the end I was very happy with the result. I got the Hang Drum samples from Dark Arps. There are 8 individual Hang Drum notes, plus a row of buttons at the bottom, which play background songs to play along with. On the top row there are Volume Up and Down buttons, and a red button which stops all the background tracks in case I want to pick a different one. And it has a headphone jack that shuts off the speaker when in use, in order not to annoy others around me.

Cardboard Camera

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a modification I made to the Scanner Camera when the scanner and laptop I was using for it died. Not wanting to throw it away, I removed the scanner and added a third box. The side of the box attached to the camera would hold a piece of parchment paper to act as the “film.” Then I just take a picture of the image on the paper with my cellphone. While not pictured here, I also added a lid for the back with a cutout to hold the cellphone. That reduces the amount of ambient light that can get into the box, washing out the image.

Water Heater Hank Drum

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

One day as I was doing a trash run while camping, I spotted this metal tank next to the dumpster. As soon as I saw it I knew I could make it into a Hank Drum (Hang + Tank = Hank). Typically these are made from empty propane tanks, and this tank had similar proportions. Undeterred by my wife’s eye rolling, I brought it home and began to work. I used an angle grinder to cut the top and bottom pieces, which I eventually glued together with JB Weld. The water heater has a couple of tubes inside it, and after cutting these out it left a hole on the side of the finished drum, which you wouldn’t see in a propane tank drum. I found a template online for where the tongues should go, marked them, then used a jigsaw to cut them out. To tune this instrument you have to slowly cut to make the tongues longer, which will lower the pitch. It’s not perfectly tuned, but is close enough. I finished by spray painting it black and splattered some other colors, gave it a few coats of clear coat and called it a day. The sound is quite metallic, so I added a bunch of paper towels to the inside to help mellow it out a bit.

Woodburning, Stain and Sharpie

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I bought this guitar when the kids were little, and it had been sitting around for years in a corner somewhere. My daughter and I had sanded it down and taped off the fretboard and pick guard with the idea of painting it, but we never got around to it. I decided to take on the job myself by reproducing Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” on it. Surely you have seen this painting…it’s the one of that huge wave and a couple of boats, with Mount Fuji in the background. I started by woodburning the outline for the whole thing. I determined that even though I had sanded it, I hadn’t done so enough to completely remove the clear coat, which made the woodburning difficult and uneven. I then got a stain pen and started coloring in the black parts of the image, but was also not thrilled with the results. So to finish it off I got a Sharpie and got to work. Once finished I gave it a few coats of Polyurethane, put everything back together and that was that.

Lake Scraps Diddley Bow

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine invited us to spend a long weekend at their lake house. While there I noticed that there was a lot of debris that would wash up on the shore. He knows I like to make instruments from reclaimed materials, so we went hunting for junk to make something out of. I saw this old rusty oil can, and the idea for this instrument was born. Everything I used for this diddley bow came from the lake, except for the string and the tuner. I wanted to add a piezo to it but didn’t want to cut into it, so I took a mint tin, added a piezo and jack to it, then attached it to the bottom of the oil can with a magnet. It picks up the sound ok, but this is really more of a wall piece and not so much for playing.

Lake scraps

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the Diddle Bows section of this site you’ll find a diddley bow I made from scraps I found on the shore while visiting a friend’s lakehouse. I also picked up enough materials to make a kalimba. Only the screws and tines did not come from the lake. In fact the tines are made from the metal bars that make the notes on a toy piano.

The finished product

Salad Bowl Lyre

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I got this idea from YouTube after being mesmerized by Tobias Kaye’s Sounding Bowl videos on YouTube. I just had to make one. It’s a simple project, just needed to find the right bowl. This particular bowl comes from Granville VT via my local Goodwill. I bought a set of 16 Lyre strings from Amazon but only used 12 of them, tuned as follows: E5 D5 C5 B4 A4 G4 F4 E4 D4 C4 B3 A3. The final product sounds fine but a bit thin in my opinion, but you tell me…

PVC Native American Flute

Sat, 06 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

There’s plenty of people making these on the internet, and I finally got around to making one. Using a piece of 3/4" Schedule 40 PVC pipe that I had in my garage, I made this Native American style flute. It is tuned as follows: G4 A#4 C5 D5 D#5 F5 G5. I haven’t decided if I’m going to paint and decorate it, or leave it as is so you can tell it’s a piece of PVC. My laziness and interest in moving on to the next project tells me to leave it as is…

Binary Clock

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Binary clocks have always been fascinating to me. They display the time accurately, but you have to do a bit of mental math to determine the time. I had an Arduino and some LEDs laying around, as well as this box with a cute cat on the lid that I got at a thrift shop. So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work!

The finished product, showing 9:17 as the time

Cigar Box Clock

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Ok this is a quick one. I took a a cigar box and added a clock mechanism. That’s it.

The finished product

Another angle

Bed Warmer Dulcimer

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My son and I were walking around an antique store when we ran into this bed warmer hanging on the wall. I had no idea what it was at the time, but my son encouraged me to get it and make a guitar out of it. The round hollow body was just wide enough to fit a guitar neck, and I figured the brass body would resonate quite nicely. I was right! I decided to make a dulcimer out of it instead of a regular 3 string guitar, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I added a flat humbucker pickup on the inside, so it can be played through an amplifier.

PC Speaker System with LED Soundbar and Phone Charger

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I had this old Cambridge Sound Works surround sound PC speaker system sitting in my closet for about 25 years, untouched. It includes four speakers, a subwoofer and a volume knob that all plug into an amplifier. It always sounded really well, but I had no use for it, and just hated to throw it out. Instead of tossing it into the landfill, I made a Bluetooth speaker that I now take with us when we go camping. The box is made from spare MDF I had lying around. I bought a Bluetooth transmitter/receiver that you would use in your car with an aux cable, and wired the output of that into the speakers. I always liked sound reactive LEDs, so I added an LED soundbar. And since I planned to use this outside for long periods of time, I added a wireless charger on top to me able to charge my phone while listening to music all day long. The best part is that everything is using off the shelf components connected into a power strip in the box. No soldering at all was required.

Windchime from Junked Trampoline

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

At the beginning of 2022 our trampoline was thrown into our pond by a windstorm. It got bent to the point of being unusable, so I went ahead and made a windchime to hang in our backyard. 100% made from recycled components.

The finished product

Sears Cassette Player Amp

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Remember when Sears made cassette players? No? Well it turns out they did. And unbeknownst to them, they make great amps. These units have tone and volume control, and also a jack to plug them to an external speaker.

The finished product

Yeah, Sears made cassette players

Bookshelf Speakers and Subwoofer

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

People will throw out all kinds of things because they don’t work anymore. For example, someone threw out a 10″ subwoofer, even though the speaker itself was intact. I had a pair of bookshelf speakers that were languishing in the basement, so I liberated them out of their enclosures, and built this box to hold them all. The box is mostly MDF, and the sides are plywood, because I ran out of MDF…all scraps from other projects. I got a bluetooth amp from Amazon which pumps out 50W per channel, plus 50W for the subwoofer. You can even tune the subwoofer frequency to reduce vibrations. I really like how this one came out and use it daily in my home office. I don’t think I have raised the volume more than 1/4 of the way given how loud it can get.

La Palina Cigar Box

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I made this Uke as a gift for a good friend of ours. Her husband had given me a bunch of cigar boxes when he learned I liked to make instruments. As a thank you, I made them this Ukulele. She actually knows how to play the Ukulele so I was happy to make this one to add to her collection. The neck is made from a water ski that somebody threw away. I used a door strike plate to hold the strings, and the emergency key that comes with door knobs as the bridge. Scroll down for a few pictures from the build!

R.G. Dun Cigar Box Bluetooth Speaker

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It’s amazing how small some of these bluetooth amps are that you can get online. Cheap too. I got this one for $15 and it is smaller than the remote that comes with it. I had an old flat screen TV that finally bit the dust, so I harvested the speakers to make this beauty. Truth be told it is not the best sounding sound system, but what do you want for $15…

Salad Bowl Kora

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Kora is a beautiful sounding instrument from West Africa. Traditionally it is made from a large gourd and has 21 strings made from fishing line. I was introduced to this instrument in the late 90’s when I first heard Toumani Diabaté, and never forgot his amazing playing style. I didn’t have access to a large guord, but I do have access to a Goodwill, and they had this wooden salad bowl that I thought would make a good body. The neck came from scrap wood that used to be a picture frame, and the bridge was made from scrap wood. I ended up using 12 strings instead of 21.

Wok Hand Pan

Sun, 22 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have wanted a Hang drum for a long time. However, they are quite expensive, so I keep looking for ways to make my own. I found a variation of this hand pan that uses tongues instead of the divots in the Hang drum, where people make them out of propane tanks. Not having a propane tank, nor the skills to cut and weld one of these tank drums, I instead opted to use an old steel wok. First I had to sand away the old faded paint, rust, and food particles accumulated over years of abuse. Then I cut the tongues with a jigsaw, not particularly tuning them to a specific scale. However, I like how it came out. You can play it with just your hands, or with rubber mallets. I made a couple by adding rubber bouncy balls to screwdrivers.

Cassetone

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I saw Rich Bernett’s “The Sound of Machines” YouTube video where he came up with this thing called a Cassettone, I knew I had to make one. It is a variation on the Mellotron. Whereas the Mellotron has a separate piece of tape that plays a note for each key in the keyboard, this has one cassette player, and each key plays the tape at a different speed. The knobs are used to change the speed of the tape player. Then using a tape loop of a single knob, you can play different notes. I had a tape that was inside an old tape player I got at Goodwill at some point, so I used it for this experiment. I recorded a note from a keyboard for about a minute so I could play around with the notes. I didn’t have the patience to make a tape loop out of it. I added a jack so it could be played through an amp. It is supposed to disable the speaker when you plug in an audio cable. However, the jack was cheap garbage and once you plugged in a cable once, it never returned to the starting position, so I have an alligator clip holding it in place. I used an old record to make a plate for the knobs, and a jack plate for the 1/4″ jack.

Melodica with CPAP Machine

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My father had this pianica (you may know it as a melodica) that he would play for us when we were kids in the 1970’s. When he passed away in 2020 I inherited it, and it is a treasured keepsake. I wanted to be able to play it, and kept thinking of ways to blow air into it without having to do it myself. I use a CPAP machine, and had a spare one, so one day it hit me…this would be the perfect machine to blow air into it…you can regulate the amount of air that it blows, and is whisper-quiet. Initially I just had the CPAP sitting next to the pianica, but eventually I built a box in which to keep the CPAP.

Longboard Koto

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I found this skateboard that someone had thrown away. You could tell from the damage that it had not been moved in quite some time. Instead of letting it rot away, I took it home, cleaned it up a bit, and turned it into this Japanese Koto.

Kotos typically have 21 strings, but there’s not enough room for that many strings on a longboard, so I settled for the highest pitched 10. These 10 strings add so much tension that I had to find some heavy duty brackets to keep the bar holding them down straight. Each string has its own bone bridge that I hand-shaped out of dog chew bones, using a belt sander. The tuning is done via zither pins, and the eye loops directing the strings to the pins are from the 1890’s piano I salvaged (I use these eye loops in quite a few projects documented on this website).

Christmas Tree

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As I was throwing out the Christmas tree in 2020, I decided to keep a small piece of the tree and make a kalimba out of it.

The finished product

Does that look like a face to you?

Optical Tremolo Pedal v.2

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first one of these I made used a photoresistor on the lid of the box, which was a bit clunky to use since it required a light source outside of the box to work. For version 2, I got myself a Digispark microcontroller and a knob to control an LED that would strobe in front of the photoresistor to pass the signal to the amp. I added a second LED to show the strobing speed to the user. This one is a bit easier to use

Slides

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Here are pictures of various slides I have made throughout the years

Another Ham Bone - 3 November 2020

Noble Oak Bourbon - 19 September 2020

Southern Tier Bourbon - 30 August 2020

Iron Smoke Bourbon - 16 February 2020

Slide Display - 7 April 2018

Zoom Mute Button

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Zoom became the way to communicate with coworkers during the COVID pandemic in 2020. It quickly became apparent that there needed to be a way to mute yourself easily without having to navigate to the app and click the Mute button. Since this feature has a keyboard shortcut, it was easy to create a button to do this. I used a Digispark microcontroller. It’s very small and only a couple of bucks, so it was perfect for this. I added a red LED to indicate when Mute was enabled. As a bonus feature, holding the button down will drop from the meeting. You can see the code in my GitHub repo.

Old Window Shutters Dulcimer

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We got these old shutters from a neighbor with the intention of using them for decoration. However, they sat in the garage for a couple of years before we decided that wasn’t going to happen. So I quickly took a couple to make this dulcimer. I had an old plastic toy guitar I picked up at a thrift store, and ended up adding the piezo and volume control to the dulcimer so you can play it through an amp. The volume knob is the cap from a whiskey bottle. I added springs on the inside for reverb. The shutters are still functional, although they don’t affect the sound as I had hoped.

Super Sized Kalimba

Sat, 03 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A friend gave me a bunch of long, slightly curved wood slats he was going to throw away. I made a gigantic kalimba with them and a piece of plywood. It is more for show, as the tuning was not particularly easy to do.

Trying it out with some piano hammers

Another Touch Tone Phone

Sat, 22 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Got this beige touch tone phone to make a mic for a friend (hi Tim!). The kids had to put it through a thorough test cycle before we shipped it out.

The finished product

Taking it for a test drive

Snap Circuits Amp

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ok, this is a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see if I could build an amp from parts from a Snap Circuits. Turns out you can, but don’t expect to shake the walls when you play it.

A needlessly elaborate Rick Roll

Never gonna give up making silly instruments and amps

Melbourne Beach Driftwood

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Found this gnarly chunk of wood at the beach while on vacation in Melbourne, FL and had to make a kalimba out of it…better than a postcard to remember the trip! In particular I liked the blue paint with the stripe down the front. I decided not to trim the tines to make it look a bit more messy.

The finished product

Octagonal Floor Sample

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Lowes has these flooring samples that you can take with you to see how they might look in your house. Turns out you can also use them to make kalimbas. I cut this one into an octagon shape to make it look different. I used wiper blades for the tines and a piece of the tile to hold them in place.

The finished product

Gran Habano Cigar Box Amp

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This box is a beauty. I saw it at a cigar store in Key West and immediately knew I would make an amp out of it. The amp itself is made from a toy guitar and amp combo. The guitar was pretty much garbage, but the amp was definitely worth salvaging. Even the volume knob was red, which matched perfectly with the box. I ended up adding a second speaker to give it a bit more oomph.

Coconut and Driftwood Harp

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This one is more of a shelf piece than an actual instrument to play. I got the coconut and wood scraps while walking on the beach in Melbourne, FL and packed them in my suitcase so I could make an instrument out of them. The coconut cracked as I was putting it together from the tension, so they have just enough tension to look good.

The finished product

Windsor Radio Frankenamp

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I like this radio because it had the ability to tune into TV channels. However, I much prefer making amps out of cassette players. So I combined both…I got the circuitry from a cassette player and stuffed it inside this radio’s case. I connected the tuning knob to the circuit to get some interesting glitched out effects. The resulting amp sounds great, and looks great too!

The finished product

Toy Amp with Boo and Applause Buttons

Sat, 18 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This one is a bit of a joke. I found this toy guitar/amp combo at Goodwill and of course had to get it to use for various projects. The amp showed some potential as a pedal, so I quickly took it apart to see what I could do with it. It features a button that plays a crowd applauding and cheering, and a second button that boos. A third button cycles through a few different, yet very repetitive beats for you to play along. And it has two separate line in connectors for a microphone and MP3 or other music source. It even has a light that changes color continuously and is quite bright. This lets you recreate the full experience of being in concert right at home!

Kazoo

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The question is not “why make a kazoo?” It is “Why NOT make a kazoo?” I made this from a paint stirrer I got at Home Depot and wax paper. It’s three layers: a top, a bottom, and sides, so that it is hollow in the middle. I actually messed up and made the tapered part in the wrong end. Your mouth goes near the port with wax paper, not the other side. Oh well, it works as good as you could expect a kazoo to work. Fun fact, you don’t blow into a kazoo, you hum into it to make the sound.

H. Upmann Cigar Box Lyre

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I got this box in a small cigar shop in the Miami airport. It is made entirely of wood, and is pretty solid. The bridge is made from flooring, and is made from a very hard wood whose name I forget. I got some Lyre strings and zither pins to make this instrument. I added a piezo under the bridge, so you can play it through an amp. The inserts that came with the box were in the turquoise color, so I used it to make a jack plate.

Flying V Guitar Made from 2x4's

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

You might be driving down the road, see a pile of 2 by 4’s that someone put by the curb and think nothing of it. I think “I’ll make a Flying V guitar from those!” After removing all the nails and scraping away bits of insulation, I cut and glued these slats together into a rough Flying V shape. Since I don’t have a planer or a router, it is not super flat, and I smoothed out the edges with a belt sander. I had purchased a set with two humbuckers, tone and volume knobs and selector switch, ditched the pickguard that came with it and made one from 1/8″ plywood. The fret markers are just spray paint. I used the lower pitched strings from an Ernie Ball Mammoth Slinky pack to get a loooow sound. This is a guitar for playing Doom Metal exclusively.

Walkman Distortion Pedal

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Since you can make small amps out of cassette players, and they tend to give you a bit of overdrive, I figured you could make a pedal out of a walkman. Turns out that was a good assumption. Wiring a 3/4″ jack to the cassette head is all it takes, then take the headphone out and connect that to an amp and you are done. In this case the volume knob controls how much distortion you get out of the “pedal.” It’s a bit clunky because you also have to mess around with the volume on the amp to get a good sound, but I like the effect that this walkman makes.

Seneca Lake Driftwood

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I made this kalimba from a piece of wood my son pulled out of Seneca lake when we went on a Boy Scouts trip. I used wider than usual wiper blades for the tines, which gives it a deeper sound.

The finished product

Fisher Price Cassette Player Amp

Thu, 04 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This one is even goofier looking than the Fisher Price 826 Cassette Player Amp I made previously. The mic on this one works too, so you can sing along while you rock out!

Driftwood from Babcock Hovey

Sat, 29 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My son was in Boy Scouts for a couple of years, and we went to a weekend camping trip at their Babcock Hovey Scout Camp in September, 2018. On our way to dig for fossils by the lake, I saw this piece of driftwood that looked perfect for a diddley bow. We pulled it out of the water, and found two rocks that would work perfectly as the bridge and nut. I added a thin humbucker pickup so it can be played via an amp. To commemorate the experience, I woodburned the date of the camping trip. This made for a great souvenir!

Nintendo Arduino Keytar

Sat, 29 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

While browsing through Cigar Box Guitar groups on Facebook, I kept coming across this post about a NES that had been turned into a 6 string guitar. I thought it was the coolest idea, and decided I wanted to make one. But then I thought…this has already been done. What else can I do with it? I had also been thinking about making an instrument with an Arduino, and bam! an idea was born. What if I created an instrument that looked like a guitar, with the NES as the body, but made the sounds with an Arduino?

Dutch Masters Cigar Box Ukulele

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I made this Uke as a gift for my brother in law, who is a chef. I wanted to add a couple of kitchen touches, so the bridge is made from a spatula handle, the strings are held in place by a leaf from a vegetable steamer, and the sound hole has a cheese grater as its cover. The neck was made from butcher block scrap wood.

The finished product

PC Speakers and Woodworking Kit Box Amp

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We bought our kids these woodworking kits…basically a wood box with a bunch of random cuts of wood so they can start building their woodworking skills. You can imagine what my first thought was when I saw the box :)

Phone Speaker in Fan Case

Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve made a few microphones from landline phone speakers, but wanted to try something different. I had an old fan that didn’t work anymore, so I took it apart. The phone speaker fit perfectly, and now it has an old-timey microphone look.

The finished product

DIY Guitar Pickup

Tue, 14 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This is more of a test to see if I could make a guitar pickup. I took a motor out of a fan to make a microphone, and kept the coil. I then took a piece of copper wire and wrapped it around the coil, and added a couple of neodymium magnets. Then I hooked up a 1/4″ jack and tested it out. It worked! The sound was very low though, so not likely to use this in an instrument…but it worked!

Optical Tremolo Pedal v.1

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This tremolo pedal relies on a photoresistor on the lid of the box to pass the signal to the amp. I used a strobing app on my phone flashing right on the photoresistor to control the tremolo effect. This was my first attempt at making one of these types of pedals. While cool, it’s not very convenient, since you have to have a light source to control the effect. It does, however, give you the ability to play around with the effect a bit more.

PC Speakers Cigar Box Amp

Sat, 02 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The finished product

Someone stored nuts in this cigar box at some point, evidently

Old drawer pull

Nothing says quality like using rubber bands to keep the lid shut

Soundesign Radio Amp

Sat, 02 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s another one that I made from an old Soundesign radio. The 1/4″ jack is connected to the volume pot, so you can play along with the radio.

The finished product

80’s Transparent Touch Tone Phone Microphone

Sat, 16 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

You know you are an 80’s kid if you had one of these transparent touch tone phones.

My son the crooner

Very little sass on this one…

Touch Tone Phone

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first mic I made from an old touch tone phone. You speak into the phone’s speaker, which works great as a mic, with a great lo-fi sound. I put the speaker in the mouthpiece so you can speak into it like a regular phone. Ever wonder what one looks like from the inside? Here you go!

The finished product

Acid Cigar Box Amp

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Just about everyone that makes amps uses an Acid cigar box at some point, and here’s my attempt at it. These boxes are pretty sturdy and roomy, so they are perfect for making an amp. The speaker and grill came from a big speaker I found on the side of the road…the kind that was about 3 feet tall and would be part of the furniture in people’s homes in the 80’s. This was the grill for the mid-range. I used an amp kit I bought online. It’s not very loud, but I got to solder, so it was fun to put together. Great starter project.

Windchime Keyboard

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This one came from an idea my daughter had. I was building a noise box which has a hard drive platter attached to a springy door stop. She thought it would work well to use a hair beret to strike the platter. When we tried it, the sound was pretty good. After she came up with that idea, I thought about making an entire keyboard with hair berets, each of which would strike a pipe from a windchime.

Noise Box

Sun, 20 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to make a noise box for my kids to play with. This one has all kinds of junk on it, including a hard drive platter that I mounted on a springy doorstopper, which is hit when you flick a hair beret at it (my daughter’s idea). There’s also a comb, some rubber bands, a few springs and beer caps. To make the thing even more annoying, I added a piezo (contact mic) on the inside so that you can plug it into an amp and really annoy everyone around you!

Boy Scouts Popcorn Tin Chugger

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My son was in Boy Scouts for a few years. As you probably know, Boy Scouts sell popcorn to raise funds for their troop. Ours was no exception, so every year we went to Walmart and stood outside their doors selling popcorn. One year I decided to make a chugger (2 string guitar) out of one of the popcorn tins we were selling, then bring it with us to play while we sold popcorn. To make it stand out a bit, I woodburned the word “POPCORN!” on the neck. None of us know how to play guitar, so I think we ended up mostly annoying people as they walked by, giving us puzzled looks.

Romeo y Julieta Cigar Box Dulcimer

Sun, 16 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This dulcimer was a present for my mother for Christmas 2018. She had found this great Romeo y Julieta wooden box and asked me to make a guitar out of it. The string holder is a leaf from a vegetable steamer, and the sound hole is a drain cover. I went with a full set of frets instead of the typical diatonic dulcimer frets, both for the look but also for the versatility of having all the frets in the chromatic scale.

Dogbowl Resonator Guitar

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

It was so much fun to make this guitar. I love how the dog bowl gives the guitar a metallic tone, sounding a bit like a banjo. For the stain, I used a Japanese technique called Shou Sugi Ban, which involved charring the wood with fire (yes, fire!), then applying a thin coat of stain. The wood grain will burn at different rates and you end up with this great look. It worked better on the sides than the top and back, since those are plywood. For the neck, I made stain by putting steel wool in a jar with vinegar, then left it until it dissolved the steel wool. Different woods stain at different rates, which you can tell by looking at the neck where it meets the body.

Motorized Pilsner Urquell Beer Tin Diddley Bow

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

After making a handcranked Hurdy Gurdy Dulcimer mashup, and a Optimo Cigar Box Diddley Bow with Fishing Reel to do the strumming, I thought…”why am I doing the cranking myself? I should automate this.” So I made this thing. I used a Pilsner Urquell beer lunchbox and added a small motor from an old toy. I glued a couple of wires to it, just long enough to hit the single string. To keep the beer theme going I used a bottle opener as the tailpiece. It sounds pretty terrible to be honest, watch the video and judge for yourself.

Guitar Picks

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A few guitar pics I have made

Bone pick

Canadian coin

Bowls Resonator Guitar

Sat, 08 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine gave me this guitar, so I decided to experiment and make a resonator guitar with a couple of metal bowls, one inside the other. One of the tuners was broken, so this became a 5 string guitar. Just like Keith Richards plays! I had to add a bunch of reinforcements to the inside of the guitar so the pressure of the strings didn’t crush the bowl into the back of the guitar. For the bridge, I used the “puck” from a windchime. For the string holder, I used a drawer pull. When I was done I noticed the strings were not taut enough, so I added an aluminum bar to put more pressure on them. Doesn’t look great, but does the job.

GE AM/FM Radio Amp

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

When making an amp out of a radio that doesn’t have a cassette player, you have to solder the 1/4″ jack to the volume pot. You can play along with the radio, but if you want to play just the guitar you still hear the radio interference, so it doesn’t sound as good.

Fisher Price 826 Cassette Player Amp

Sun, 19 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is the one that started my obsession with making amps out of cassette players. It’s very easy to do. All you need is to wire up a 1/4″ jack to the positive end of the cassette head and to ground. That’s it! You can hunt around on the circuit board until you find the right point to solder, which is what I did here.

Plus, they tend to overdrive, so the sound that comes out of it is distorted, great for playing blues or rock. You have to press Play for it to work, which gets a chuckle every time. I ended up selling this one, and have regretted it every since. Going to have to get another one.

Camacho Cigar Box

Sat, 04 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is one of my favorites. It was my first attempt at making a guitar that looked “finished”, and is the first guitar I made with electric pickups. The box itself is beautiful. These Camacho boxes are popular for guitars because they have such a nice glossy finish. They are also very sturdy. I used a humbucker pickup, so the sound is clean. I added tone and volume pots, and matching silver hardware. This is one I go back to often when I want to noodle.

Cookie Tin with Piezo

Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I made this mic by sticking a piezo contact microphone inside a cookie tin, then added a 1/4″ jack. Doesn’t get any easier to build, and has a nice lo-fi sound. Since the piezo picks up vibrations, you have to get your mouth pretty close to the lid.

The finished product

Testing it out

Clarus Cigar Box Diddley Bow

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second diddley bow I make with this type of yard stick. See my King Edward diddley box elsewhere on this site for pictures of that one. The bridge is part of the locking mechanism from a door knob, and the sound hole cover is a drain cover.

The finished product

Hurdy Gurdy Dulcimer Mashup

Fri, 27 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This one took some time to build. I originally wanted to build a version of a hurdy gurdy. A neighbor had his backyard umbrella destroyed by a windstorm, and I salvaged the crank, immediately coming up with the idea to make a hurdy gurdy. Now, hurdy gurdys are elaborate instruments, and I was not about to take on that complicated of a build. So I thought I would make a similar instrument, but with three strings. Basically a cigar box guitar but with a handle to turn a wheel that would vibrate the strings.

Pinewood Derby Car

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

When my son was in Scouts they had a couple of pinewood derby races. After we made the car, I couldn’t resist and turned one of the wood scraps into a kalimba. The paint job is inspired by the classic blue and white Shelby Cobra. Needless to say, it does not meet the strict rules for racing…and it was not particularly fast. But the wheels vibrate, much like they put beer bottle caps on real kalimbas to make them rattle.

Star Wars Lunchbox

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I had a great time making this Uke from a Star Wars lunchbox. I shaped the neck entirely by hand so it would taper at the headstock, and added a piezo so it can be played through an amplifier. It’s too bad my fingers are too big to play this comfortably, which is why I can’t play it very well. Actually, I don’t really know how to play Ukulele, so that may also have something to do with it.

Dollar Store Toy Guitar Diddley Bow

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Ok this one is pretty much a joke. We spotted a toy guitar at the dollar store and thought it would be funny to turn it into a playable instrument. I added a real tuner to attempt to get a real note out of it. The tension was so strong that I had to add a wooden dowel to the inside of the guitar to keep it from bending. It was a fun little experiment for an afternoon.

Phillies Blunt Chugger

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

My son tried his hand at making a chugger…basically a two string guitar. I helped him along, but he did most of the work himself. We added springs on the inside to add a bit of reverb. He was very excited with the results, and I was super proud!

I highly recommend trying this project with your kids. It teaches them about handling tools, and the result is something they made and can be proud of. All you need is a box, a wooden dowel, and a couple of other random parts. A word of caution…this project takes more than a day to complete, so be prepared to encourage your child to complete it once they lose the initial interest.

Antonio Y Cleopatra Cigar Box Diddley Bow Made by my Daughter

Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter wanted to try her hand at making a diddley bow…so that’s what we did. She did 90% of the work herself, with me guiding her and taking pictures. It was a bit difficult to keep an 8 year old focused enough to complete it, but in the end it came out great!

The finished product

Cutting the neck

Sanding the place for the tuner

Tin Can Cymbalum

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I watched a video by Musique De Nulle Part where he made one of these and just had to make my own. I had a scrap piece of wood that came from an old cabinet, sanded it down, and cut out notches for the tuners. I attached cans to the board with L brackets, strung it up with some old guitar strings, and that was it! I think different strings would have sounded better, but that’s all I had at the time.

Bush Baked Beans Canjo

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This canjo uses a large can of Bush baked beans as the resonator. I added a Home Depot yardstick to act as the fretboard, and welding rod for the frets. In hindsight, I should have cut a picking area by the can to make playing easier.

The finished product

Threaded bolt for the nut. Welding rod for the frets

Tree Trunk 2

Sun, 17 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

We had a tree fall in our backyard, so I took a chunk of it to make a kalimba.

The finished product

Caballero Skateboard Lapsteel

Sat, 02 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

My favorite skater growing up was Steve Caballero. His dragon skateboard stands out in my memory as my favorite. I had been toying with the idea of making a lapsteel out of a skateboard for some time, when I saw this Caballero model on Facebook marketplace for $20. When I went to pick it up I noticed it had a 6″ crack starting at the nose. “Perfect,” I thought, knowing that this skateboard was never to be ridden again. As I gave the guy the $20 I detected a sly smirk, like he thought he was tricking me out of my money. He had no idea what I was going to do with the skateboard…and I didn’t tell him.

Optimo Cigar Box Diddley Bow with Fishing Reel

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This diddley bow has been through a couple of iterations. At first, it was a simple diddley bow I made in an afternoon. It featured a ukulele tuner, a piece of a door lock to hold the string, and a wooden plug for the bridge. I especially liked the writing on the box, which was apparently used to hold melon seeds. At some point I saw a video by the Blue Man Group where they had constructed an instrument that was played by rotating a wheel, which had plastic flaps all around its edge that would pluck the string, creating an endless strumming of the single string. I wanted to make this same sound, so I grabbed a fishing reel and attached a couple of zip ties to it. I also added some aluminum wire for frets. It is a bit clunky to play, but does the job.

King Edward Cigar Box Diddley Bow

Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This build started with the unique yardstick I had. It was made from a square wooden dowel, with measurements on one edge and the name of the company on another edge. Given that it has some flex to it, I could only use it for a diddley bow, or risk it bending under string tension. The King Edward cigar box I used is a bit flimsy, so I reinforced it with wood. Looking back at these pictures I think I overdid it with the bracing, but you can never be too sure!

License Plate Box Guitar

Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Got this license plate from Playero, a surf shop in Puerto Rico (¡wepa boricua!) and made this license plate guitar. To keep the Puerto Rican theme going, I used dominos for the bridge and nut. I made the box from scratch using wood that came from a couch that had been put to the curb. I added a spring in the inside, which adds a bit of reverb. There’s a piezo (contact mic) under the license plate, so it can be played through an amp.

Lego Kalimba

Sun, 05 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s face it, just about everything has been made out of Legos by now. I don’t think I have seen a kalimba though, until I made this one. I learned a hard lesson while making this one…it is a good idea to glue the pieces together as you build it. This is because the first time I made the box, while attempting to press a piece that was being particularly stubborn, the whole thing exploded and I had to start over!

Tree Trunk 1

Sat, 04 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

We had a tree fall in our backyard, so I took a chunk of it to make a kalimba. I experimented with two different tine lengths to see how they would sound. It wasn’t very impressive.

The finished product

Two different tine lengths for different sounds

I didn’t sand it too much since I liked how the cut marks give a nice texture

Tree Trunk with Taino Woodburning

Sun, 22 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I made this kalimba as a gift for my sister. I took the wood from a tree that had fallen in our back yard. I carved the inside to make it hollow. The idea was to mimic a Sansula, which is a kalimba that is attached to a small drum to give it additional resonance. I drew the Taino symbol for the sun and added a coat of polyurethane to seal everything.

Piano Fallboard

Sun, 08 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Someone threw out a piano from the 1890’s, and I tried to salvage as much of it as I could. One of the pieces I was able to take was the fallboard. I made this kalimba out of it.

The finished product

The eye hooks also came from the piano

Toy Box

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This was one of my first kalimbas. I used a box from an old puzzle toy, added a lid, and spray painted it black. The tines are made from wiper blades. The tines are held in place by a grounding bar.

The finished product

Oliver Twist Fake Book Diddley Bow

Wed, 13 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This one took part of an afternoon to complete. It was a simple build, just a box and a wooden dowel, a tuner and a bold for a bridge.

After seeing this post about a one string instrument called a Marxolin, I added a hose splicer to this diddley bow to try it out.

The finished product

Fret lines are cut into the dowel

Engineered Hardwood Flooring Sample

Sun, 25 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Lowes has these flooring samples that you can take with you to see how they might look in your house. Turns out you can also use them to make kalimbas. For this one I took two samples of engineered hardwood flooring and glued them back to back. I left the tongue and groove intact because I thought it looked interesting. I used wiper blades for the tines and a couple of grounding bars to hold them.

Box with Piezo Mic

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

My son picked out this box at a thrift store and asked me to make a kalimba out of it. I made it, and added a piezo (contact mic) inside so that it can be played through an amp. The tines are made from wiper blades, and they are attached to the box by a grounding bar.

The finished product

PVC Didgeridoo

Fri, 19 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This one is pretty basic. a long PVC tube with an endcap that has a smaller diameter. I never did get a good sound out of it, since playing the Didgeridoo is hard enough

Testing it out

My Kids Made These Diddley Bows

Sat, 06 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A diddley bow is one of the simplest instruments you can make. All you need is a piece of wood, a string, two bridges to hold the string above the wood, and a tuner, if you want a specific note. This makes it a perfect project to make with your kids. And that’s exactly what we did here, when they were 5 and 7 years old. We used scrap wood for the body of the diddley bow. We got fancy and added an Altoids tin on one end with a piezo (contact mic) inside of it, so you can play it through an amplifier. I think the most fun part of the project was painting them. I let them pick the colors they wanted to use, and they did all the painting themselves. I purposely did not cover the sawhorses we used so they would get paint all over them, and to this day I remember this project whenever I look at them. To add a bit of a science lesson, we woodburned their names on the back using a magnifying glass (which came from my scanner camera – see elsewhere on this site for details on that one).

Eddie Van Halen Tribute

Sat, 22 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I had a can of red wood stain, so I decided to make a diddley bow that looked like Eddie Van Halen’s classic Frankenstrat. The body is a scrap piece of wood that I had lying around. I got the paint job and black and red lines as close as I could to the original. I used a “Cap-O-Tone” from C.B. Gitty and an Altoids tin to add a piezo and volume knob so it can be played through an amp. The bridge is held to the frame by a cabinet hinge spray painted black. Later I added some frets from white wire hangers, and fret markers from thumbtacks

War and Peace Fake Book

Sat, 15 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I got this box that looks like the book War and Peace and my first thought was to make a guitar out of it. At the time I was still pretty new to making instruments and you can tell, given how I made the neck. I thought I would try a different design for how to make the headstock. It was an interesting idea, but makes the neck so thick you can’t really play the first 2-3 frets. This is how we learn!

Opus One Wine Crate Dulcimer

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

My wife had this Opus One crate that I always wanted to do something with. I thought of making a dulcimer, having never actually seen one in real life. I had a bunch of scrap wood ribs from a bed, so I used one for the neck. The dimensions are all off, since the neck is too wide compared to a regular dulcimer. But I think it turned out pretty good otherwise.

Mini Coca-Cola Canjo

Sat, 17 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I made this one as a joke. Took a random scrap of wood, and added one of this small cans of Coca Cola as the resonator. Added a Ukulele tuner and a handful of frets, positioned by ear. It doesn’t sound very good, and the frets don’t really follow a scale. Although I like how I installed the tuner, with the string going through the neck so the tuner could be installed with the knob on the top of the neck.

Domaine du Père Caboche Wine Crate Harp

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This instrument has gone through a few iterations. Initially I wanted to make a harp-like instrument with a bridge in the middle, so two people could play it at the same time, one on each end. The first version of this instrument ended up like that, but the sound wasn’t very good. This was because the strings were not long enough on either end to make a good sound. I ended up moving the bridge slightly towards one end and trying it that way. This made a better sound. I used Chinese guzheng strings on this first version, but it turned out they were not great quality and a few snapped.

Yaucono Coffee Canjo

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This one is as stripped down as they come. Diatonic fretting right on the neck, no fret board. I used a spare ukulele tuner and wire hanger for the frets. This was one of my first canjos.

The finished product

Guitar Made from Driftwood from Babcock Hovey

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My son was in Boy Scouts for a couple of years, and we went to a weekend camping trip at their Babcock Hovey Scout Camp. On our way to dig for fossils by the lake, I saw this piece of wood floating by the shore that had obviously been there for a while. There was faint blue paint, which had slowly eroded. I brought it back with us and made this guitar out of it. The top and back are made with this wood, and the sides are made from an old pallet that a neighbor had turned into a wine rack, but then discarded. I wanted the guitar to look old and worn out. The bridge is made from an old ruler, and a paintbrush without the handle or bristles

Saint Luis Rey Cigar Box

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I went to Cuba in 2016 and brought back this cigar box with the intention of making a guitar out of it. This is the one that got me hooked on making instruments after making my first one in 2009. The neck came from a large picture frame that my neighbor was getting rid of. I made the fret board from a Home Depot yardstick, which took some time to sand away all the markings. The sound holes are drain covers, and the strings are attached to the box using a cabinet hinge.

My Proud Son and His Creation

Wed, 07 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My son made this diddley bow out of scrap materials. It’s a simple project to make with kids to start teaching them about how stringed instruments work. All you need is a stick, a can and a string…that’s it!

My son with his creation

PVC Tubulum

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

If you have ever seen the Blue Man Group you’ve seen them play this instrument, which consists of PVC tubes of different lengths, which they strike with flat rubber mallets. According to Wikipedia this instrument originates in Papua New Guinea and is called a Thongophone…you learn something new every day!

I wanted the kids to be involved in making this instrument, so they helped as much as possible, mostly in the paint department. Being kids, they of course could not agree on a color, so we painted the frame half pink, and half blue. It was a lot of fun to make, and sounded ok when done. Using tubes of wider diameter would create a deeper and louder sound, which I’ll keep in mind if we ever make another one of these.

Coconut

Sat, 09 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

During a trip to Costco I saw they sold these packs of ice cream, individually wrapped inside a half coconut. I immediately grabbed a pack with the full intention of making a kalimba out of the coconut. This was one of my first ones, experimenting with how to hold the tines down, using a piece of wood from a cutting board and a steel bracket with two screws.

Recycled 1800’s Piano

Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

One day we went to visit my friend’s house, and a couple of houses down from his we spotted this piano that had been thrown out. It was in pieces, like it had been dropped from the sky. I asked my friend to come with me and we salvaged as much as we could, knowing that I would be using the parts for projects for some time. I made a piece of art from the keys, saved all the hammers, and all the eye hooks, which I have used as string trees and in my kalimbas for years. I finally ran out of them in 2022. I cut the fall board into a few pieces, made a kalimba our of one piece and hung the piece with the company logo as its own art piece. The coolest part is that while taking it apart, I saw pieces that were hand signed, and had dates in the late 1800’s.

Berimbau

Sun, 24 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The berimbau is an instrument from Brazil. One day my neighbor had a backyard umbrella that broke in a windstorm, so I grabbed one of the arms to make this instrument. The traditional berimbau string is made with the wire from the inside of a car tire, which keeps the inside hole sturdy against the rim. So imagine my wife’s reaction when I walked in the house one day and said “Honey, let me explain why there’s an old tire in the garage.” After some digging I was able to get the wire out and put together this nice instrument. The resonator is typically a gourd of some kind, but not having access to one, and having a child that was still on formula, I used a formula container instead. Works like a charm. A stick and a rock is all you need once the instrument is put together. The rock is used to create a bridge to change the pitch of the tone, and the stick is used to strike the wire to make the sound.

Bucket Standup Bass

Sun, 20 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to recreate the Trashcan Bass that my dad made and quickly threw this Home Depot bucket version. The sound was definitely more muted than the steel drum version

Not quite as cool as my dad’s version

Marimba

Sat, 19 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For this one I took a bunch of scrap wood and cut it into individual pieces, trimming them until they made the right onte. Just something I threw together, but my kids seemed to enjoy it for a while.

The kids trying it out

My First Diddley Bow

Sat, 19 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Here are my first few attempts at a diddley bow. I changed it up a couple of times, but the concept stayed pretty consistent. I started with a scrap piece of wood that had been used as a property marker for snow plows to avoid tearing up my lawn (hence the blue paint on one end). I added a couple of screws to hold the string, and a couple of beer bottles to add tension. Since the wooden stake is so narrow, I had to add a separate board to keep it stable on a table.

Cutting Board

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My wife was going to throw out this cutting board, so I immediately rescued it from the landfill and turned into a kalimba. I liked the small pyramids cut out on top. Almost like it challenges you to play it and not get hurt :)

I used wiper blades for the tines, and a long grounding bar to hold them in place. I colored some of the tines with a marker to try to have some way to tell them apart, but it came off after a while.

PVC Rain Stick

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A somewhat easy project to make with the kids. All you need is a PVC tube and a couple of endcaps to make the stick. Then you nail a bunch of nails in a spiral pattern, throw a cup or two of un-popped popcorn or beans, and you have yourself a rain stick. We decorated this one with black paint and colorful string wrapped around the nails.

One of my favorite pictures. Such sass!

Juice and Soda Bottles and Rubber Bands

Sun, 27 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Ok this is more of a kids grade school project kinda thing. All you need is a plastic bottle. Cut out a sound hole. Attach a few screws, and put rubber bands across the hole. Use crayons for the bridge and nut. Strum the rubber bands. Done!

The finished product

My First Cigar Box Guitar

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is the one that started this crazy hobby of mine. One day I spotted a Make Magazine article for making a cigar box guitar. I had never made anything in my life, and didn’t even own any tools. In fact, I bought my first set of power tools to make this guitar. I went to a cigar store and got this box, and for some reason had a scrap 1×2 that I used as the neck. It was simply gluing the stick to the box, the simplest way to make a guitar. The article calls for making your own tuners out of bolts, so I did that. It also has the strings made from twine, so I did that too. This wasn’t a guitar to be played, it was to be displayed. And so it stayed, for a number of years. Once I got really hooked on making instruments a few years later, I went back and added real tuners, real guitar strings and a piezo (contact mic). It is played with a slide since there are no frets on it.

Scanner Camera

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first weird camera I made. I don’t remember where I got the idea for this. Regardless, this is basically two cardboard boxes. One box is inside the other and can slide in and out for focusing. On the front of the box is the “lens”, which is a magnifying glass. The inside of the box is blacked out, and I added black foam core to cover the part of the scanner outside the camera. The whole thing was held together by rubber bands. Professional! Instead of using film, a flatbed scanner is attached to the back of the “camera.” This is basically the precursor to the Time Warp filter on Snapchat, decades before it was released!

My Father’s Trashcan Bass

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

This may be where I got my interest in making instruments, if delayed by a few decades. My father made this bass out of a galvanized steel trash can, a broom stick and a rope. Brackets covered in tattered duct tape hold up one side to let the sound out. He called it “zafa-bajo,” a combination of the words “zafacón” for trashcan, and “bajo” for bass. I remember he would play this at parties to the delight of the crowd. It was decorated with stickers from Artic-Kar, the family business. After he passed away in 2020 I inherited it, and I have to say it make a nice rumble. I suspect that the galvanized steel construction makes it sound better than an aluminum trash can. I took these pictures in January 2022, showing the wear and tear the years have brought.

Strings and Tines on Strings And Tines

Volleyball Stats Tracker

Player Name

Weather Hologram

Cornhole Score Tracker

Shirts

Cricut Vynil #

Wood Projects

Woodburning

LED Macro Pad

Casio AE-1300 mod

The Printable Watch

Command Center

Introduction #

Info Orbs

Solarcan

Alexa Lamp

Casio Tide Moon Graph gel mods

Casio Royale Negative mod plus Logo

Kodak Tourist Box Camera

Electronic Hang Drum

Cardboard Camera

Water Heater Hank Drum

Woodburning, Stain and Sharpie

Lake Scraps Diddley Bow

Lake scraps

Salad Bowl Lyre

PVC Native American Flute

Binary Clock

Cigar Box Clock

Bed Warmer Dulcimer

PC Speaker System with LED Soundbar and Phone Charger

Windchime from Junked Trampoline

Sears Cassette Player Amp

Bookshelf Speakers and Subwoofer

La Palina Cigar Box

R.G. Dun Cigar Box Bluetooth Speaker

Salad Bowl Kora

Wok Hand Pan

Cassetone

Melodica with CPAP Machine

Longboard Koto

Christmas Tree

Optical Tremolo Pedal v.2

Slides

Zoom Mute Button

Old Window Shutters Dulcimer

Super Sized Kalimba

Another Touch Tone Phone

Snap Circuits Amp

Melbourne Beach Driftwood

Octagonal Floor Sample

Gran Habano Cigar Box Amp

Coconut and Driftwood Harp

Windsor Radio Frankenamp

Toy Amp with Boo and Applause Buttons

Kazoo

H. Upmann Cigar Box Lyre

Flying V Guitar Made from 2x4's

Walkman Distortion Pedal

Seneca Lake Driftwood

Fisher Price Cassette Player Amp

Driftwood from Babcock Hovey

Nintendo Arduino Keytar

Dutch Masters Cigar Box Ukulele

PC Speakers and Woodworking Kit Box Amp

Phone Speaker in Fan Case

DIY Guitar Pickup

Optical Tremolo Pedal v.1

PC Speakers Cigar Box Amp

Soundesign Radio Amp

80’s Transparent Touch Tone Phone Microphone

Touch Tone Phone

Acid Cigar Box Amp

Windchime Keyboard

Noise Box

Boy Scouts Popcorn Tin Chugger

Romeo y Julieta Cigar Box Dulcimer

Dogbowl Resonator Guitar

Motorized Pilsner Urquell Beer Tin Diddley Bow

Cricut Vynil
#

Introduction
#