Making a tongue drum is something that had been on my list for quite a while.
I knew it was going to be quite a challenge
so I decided to eliminate as many variables as possible
so that the margin for error would be smaller.
I began researching intensively and watched all the videos
I could find on people making these drums
watched videos of drums that are out there for sale
searched for woods, joinery, design and all that stuff.
Eventually, what I decided to make was a copy of a Shlagwerk log drum.
It took me a while to go further in each step
because the last thing I wanted to end up with was a horrible sounding instrument
and call it a failure or remaking parts of the process
so I tried to be cautious and think 100 times
before cutting into actual material and so on.
If you do a bit of research you will find that
most tongue drums have padauk or wangi wood tops
and that's because these woods are more musical than others.
I don't know much about this
but all I can say is that they vibrate and reverberate in specific ways
that allow for better, fuller and easier to achieve notes.
It's probably due to their density and hardness but not just that.
So I started by preparing the wangi and after close observation
of the Shlagwerk drum I noticed that the top is not a single piece.
It's made out of 4 strips, so that's what I did.
I also did it because my timber was a bit twisted
and this way I could obtain a flat board
without as much wood removal.
Here you can hear the difference in the sound
when the pieces are being held in different spots.
For the box sides I used three-quarter inch Baltic birch plywood
and routed rabbets on the bottom and sides on the router table.
You’ll want to use high quality materials and not cheap plywood
as it may affect the sound in the end.
I planed it carefully removing a very small amount on each pass
until the board was 14 mm or a little over half an inch.
I also made a groove in the middle of one of the largest faces
to inlay a strip of wangi.
There are many ways of cutting the keys
but since I had made the template on the computer
I sent a file over to the X-carve and had it carving the lines
with a 1/16 straight bit.
You can also use a jigsaw or scroll saw and create other shapes for the keys.
Steve Carmichael has a great video on how to make a tongue drum
and he uses a jigsaw.
Since wangi is very splintery wood I made a second pass
with a V-bed to get a smoother look and feel.
I made the top edges level and glued the top
using two pieces of wood with a slight arc
on them that will act as bow clamps.
These are great for when you have a small number
of clamps and need to make pressure along the entire edge
using just one clamp on each end.
I flush trimmed the box and rounded over all the edges.
After all, this is a musical instrument
and your hands will be all over the place
so it's nice to make it round and comfortable.
I was still not getting good results so I sat back and did more research
and I found a video from KR2 wood
explaining his process for tuning his drum
and how adding more mass to the box sides
would bring the keys to a better tone and vibration.
So, I found some hard maple scraps
and glued them super tight into both sides.
Always make sure that your glue ups are perfect
because a bad glue joint will mess with the final sound.
I should have made the walls thicker from the beginning
and that way I could start fresh on the tuning
but I kept going and it eventually worked fine.
So, here I am hitting the keys and
writing down which note I was getting.
Then went back and forth removing material
until the desired note was achieved.
You can change about two tones
so, let's say you are getting a C and you want to go up to an E
then it should work
but if you're getting a C and you want to go up to a G or down to a G
it's going to be super hard or even impossible.
That's why the size of the keys also matters
and a bigger tongue is never going to go up
to match a super small tongue.
To tune it up you have to remove material from the tip of the tongue
and if you want to go down you remove material from the back of the tongue
where it meets the rest of the board.
What I noticed is that removing material on a perpendicular line
is much more effective than drilling larger holes.
Just be careful not to drill all the way through
or even make part of the tongue too thin and fragile.
After I was satisfied with the tuning I screwed the bottom with lots of screws
to make sure it was fully closed
and the pressure was even along the entire edge.
I finished off with three coats of water-based varnish.
Finally, I stuck on four foam pads that are typically used on drum kit cymbals.
The tongue drum is done and I think it sounds pretty good
for a first handmade instrument.
If you have any questions feel free to drop it on the Patreon post
where you can find a PDF with more details about this build
and a free template.
A big shout out to Rockler and Inventables
and all my Patreon supporters
and go get your hands dirty.