Kalimbas on Strings And Tines

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.