Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
The Finished Product
I officially finished building the vibraphone on February 1, 2016. Nine months since I started, or at least since I picked it back up in May 2015. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started. I wish I logged all the hours I put into this, but there's too many to even begin to make a guess. It's a very rewarding feeling to just look back on something you made yourself. By no means is it perfect because there were many mistakes along the way, but I feel very satisfied with it nonetheless. I'll be uploading videos later to show how everything sounds.
After completion, the grand total cost for the vibraphone is $949.10, which includes the cost of tools I had to buy. If you subtract the cost of tools, the cost of materials to build the vibraphone is $647.99. This is pretty amazing because a brand new, manufactured vibraphone (Adams, Yamaha) will cost anywhere from $3,500 - $8,000. If you're interested, I uploaded a spreadsheet showing the cost of each item and all the subtotals.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-4XWjs0sBQiWk4wT0dCS284WFU/view?usp=sharing
I would like to thank Jim McCarthy who runs the website www.makeamarimba.com. There you can purchase very detailed instruction manuals on how to build your own marimba, vibraphone, or glockenspiel. I based my design partly on his plans and partly on my own. But they were a HUGE help to have. I would also like to thank my parents for allowing me to take up half the garage at their house even after I moved out. Also for all the tools my dad had on hand that I didn't have to buy.
Thanks for reading my blog. If you have any questions or comments please leave a comment or email me at conn210@gmail.com
But anyways, here's some pictures. (I have no training in photography whatsoever.)
After completion, the grand total cost for the vibraphone is $949.10, which includes the cost of tools I had to buy. If you subtract the cost of tools, the cost of materials to build the vibraphone is $647.99. This is pretty amazing because a brand new, manufactured vibraphone (Adams, Yamaha) will cost anywhere from $3,500 - $8,000. If you're interested, I uploaded a spreadsheet showing the cost of each item and all the subtotals.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-4XWjs0sBQiWk4wT0dCS284WFU/view?usp=sharing
I would like to thank Jim McCarthy who runs the website www.makeamarimba.com. There you can purchase very detailed instruction manuals on how to build your own marimba, vibraphone, or glockenspiel. I based my design partly on his plans and partly on my own. But they were a HUGE help to have. I would also like to thank my parents for allowing me to take up half the garage at their house even after I moved out. Also for all the tools my dad had on hand that I didn't have to buy.
Thanks for reading my blog. If you have any questions or comments please leave a comment or email me at conn210@gmail.com
But anyways, here's some pictures. (I have no training in photography whatsoever.)
(click for higher resolution)
Dampener Bar Alterations
To my luck, the changes that needed to be made to the dampener bar were very easy. I knew that the bar was sitting too high against the keys. All I had to do was unscrew the square tubes from the A-frame strut that were jointed to the dampener bar. Then I just screwed them back in a little lower than they were before. This instantly fixed the problem.
I also added 2 more layers of felt to the dampener bar to add more dampening. Zip ties did the trick pretty well. And that's all that needed to be done. The dampener doesn't dampen the keys completely perfectly, but it's good enough for me. It just sounds like the keys are at a half pedal resonance when the pedal is up, which sounds pretty good anyway. Now the whole vibraphone is completely finished! More pictures will be coming in the next post.
I also added 2 more layers of felt to the dampener bar to add more dampening. Zip ties did the trick pretty well. And that's all that needed to be done. The dampener doesn't dampen the keys completely perfectly, but it's good enough for me. It just sounds like the keys are at a half pedal resonance when the pedal is up, which sounds pretty good anyway. Now the whole vibraphone is completely finished! More pictures will be coming in the next post.
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