Prototype of bowed psaltery/hammerred dulcimer built from some scrap, zither tuners and guitar strings.

I’m on a bit of a trend. This was built as a belated Valentines day gift so it was made from a heart shaped candy box. The main set of tines use a busbar, just like the kalimba’s on the kalimbazooka.

The pine sounding board and metal resonator gives it a pretty good sound. It is tuned to two octaves of a pentatonic C major scale.

Kalimbateeny A tiny Kalimba, also known as a thumb piano, designed to be worn as a piece of jewelery. The Kalimbateeny is a fully functional musical instrument, tuned to a D major pentatonic scale (D, E, F#, A, B). It’s made from purpleheart wood, and uses bobby pins for tines.

my build notes:

– laser cut purpleheart box
  – purple heart sourced at Woodcraft, ~1/8″ thick plank

  – cut in four pieces

1.     top piece

•         – sound hole
•         – holes for retaining bar screws to go though

2.     middle pieces

•         – most of interior volume removed
•         – slightly larger holes cut for end of screw and nut to fit
•             – should probably be even larger for washer/lock washers to fit

3.     bottom pieces

•         – no holes, etc
•         – (should have made holes through the bottom, would make assembly/disassembly easier)

– retaining bar is 1/4 inch steel rod
    – sourced at hardware store
    – two holes drilled through for retaining bar screws

      – best done on a mill/drill press but I did it with a cordless drill
    – cut to ~1.5 inches

– sound bars are 3/16 inch steel rod
    – sourced at hardware store
    – cut to ~1.25 inches
    – in theory this can be free floating on the surface, but I found

    assembly much easier after I glued them to the surface
        – gorilla glue, clamped with the retaining bar, screws, and two extra tines

-tines
    – used bobby pins
        – sourced from the pile of bobby pins in the bathroom

        – cut apart with dremel
        – used the straight part, with the rubberized coating at the end
    – (tried using tines cut from a sewer snake approx 1/8 inch wide, but these
    tines seemed to be too stiff for the small size of the box)

– fasteners

    – 3mm phillips pan screws
    – 3mm hex nuts
        – (washers and lock washers recommended if space allows)

– wood finish
    – walnut oil
        – (something a little clearer would have probably been better, to lessen discoloration of the purpleheart)

– hanging
    – slot cut though 3rd layer of wood before box assembly
        – large enough to fit some silver craft wire though to make
         wire wrapped loops on each end
    – cording created from hand-dyed silk ribbon and attached to wire-wrapped loops with overhand knots

    – overhand knots covered with cones
    – ends finished with ribbon ends

Wherein you can witness my awe inspiring stage presence.