The Pedal

At this point, the vibraphone is about 98% complete. All that's left to make is the pedal and the dampening system. If you didn't know, all vibraphones, in their default state, are dampened. This is done by a padded bar that pushes up on the keys in the middle of the frame where the natural keys and sharp/flat keys come together. The dampener is attached to a spring system that lowers it so that it's no longer in contact with the keys, letting them naturally ring when struck. This whole dampener and spring system is controlled by a pedal at the bottom of the frame that you push with your foot.

To make this pedal, I just happened to have a scrap piece of wood that was wide enough. I rounded off the corners on the end closest to your feet.

I couldn't just directly attach this pedal to the support beam running along the bottom of the frame because that beam sits a little too high and you would have to pick your foot up off the ground to push it. I had to build an extension to lower the resting position of the pedal. It's just small square blocks screwed into each other with another support beam connecting them at the bottom where the pedal will be attached. The pedal was attached using 3 door hinges.

Here is the whole instrument with the pedal installed.