Month: January 2010

Step 2 – start cutting xylophone keys

We bought some aluminum bar (3″ x .5″), which has a nice, resonant tone without any nasty harmonics to it.

Also, it’s the lightest choice (brass and steel are MUCH heavier), which will become important when we have close to a hundred pounds of keys, steel framing and audio pickups hanging off the van.

I learned how to choose raw materials for this project eight years ago the first time I built a xylophone (this one), after downloading these instructions.

I spent a good deal of time hunkered down on my knees, balancing odd bits of aluminum, steel and brass on balled-up socks (per Jim Doble’s excellent instructions), whacking it and listening to it – which gets you stared at, but generally dismissed as not worth calling the cops on.

Eventually, you figure out what sounds best – and off you go.

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Step 1 – get enormous van

If you want to build a rolling xylophone that a lot of people can play on, you need to start large.

Garage-defyingly, big-elbowed, fat-assed gas-whale large.

I don’t even want to think of how thirsty this platform is, it’s stupidly gorgeous. Burly rhomboidal lines. Four rows of seating (that won’t last long). Brown/orange “sunset” striping. Eight lugnuts per beefy wheel. Go ahead, click to enlarge the pic. You’ll barf, it’s so large.

This, friends, is our pigheaded American folly.

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