Step 7: Final assembly
Assemble the whole thing as pictured. You don't need to glue the dowels or the nail in place, friction will hold it down when it's fully assembled. Be sure to place both dowels close to the aluminum rod (about 1/2" center to center) or the keys will bounce and buzz when you play it.
Insert one street sweeper bristle and tune it roughly to a C note. Mark it and "cut" it to length, actually I just put it in a vice and broke it. File and sand it carefully to round and smooth the ends, if you don't it will make a sound scraping across your finger prints or worse scraping off your finger prints! Re-insert it under the "clamp" and do the same for each of the notes you want, I added a total of 9. If you want more you'll have to either make the whole thing bigger or space the keys closer than I'm comfortable with. I put in keys for C through G then A through D in this pattern:
====C
======A
========F
==========D
============C
==========E
========G
======B
====D
The pattern was suggested by a friend that had a bit more experience with musical instruments than I have, but other people have since made other suggestions so arrange them in any order you're comfortable with.
When they're all in, tune them carefully and tighten down the screws until you don't hear any buzzing when you play it.
Insert one street sweeper bristle and tune it roughly to a C note. Mark it and "cut" it to length, actually I just put it in a vice and broke it. File and sand it carefully to round and smooth the ends, if you don't it will make a sound scraping across your finger prints or worse scraping off your finger prints! Re-insert it under the "clamp" and do the same for each of the notes you want, I added a total of 9. If you want more you'll have to either make the whole thing bigger or space the keys closer than I'm comfortable with. I put in keys for C through G then A through D in this pattern:
====C
======A
========F
==========D
============C
==========E
========G
======B
====D
The pattern was suggested by a friend that had a bit more experience with musical instruments than I have, but other people have since made other suggestions so arrange them in any order you're comfortable with.
When they're all in, tune them carefully and tighten down the screws until you don't hear any buzzing when you play it.
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I have no clue how to do that. Can you help? Thanks.
Assemble it as shown in the first picture of step 7. Tighten the screws just tight enough to hold everything down firmly and "pluck" the bristle by pushing it down slightly with your thumb or finger and sliding off the end. You should hear a crisp note - although it may be a bit sour. The tuner I used gave instant feedback of the note heard. Determine if the note should be higher or lower using an tuner and slide the bristle forward (toward the hole) to go lower or back (away from the hole) to go higher.
For the first not you want a "C" not a sharp ("C#") or flat ("Cb"). Insert the next bristle and do the same thing for "D" or "E", just follow the pattern above.
Remember the first pass is just to get an idea of where to cut the bristles. After they are all cut to length you do it again much more accurately, with them all installed and held down a bit tighter. When fine tuning I found it helpful to hold down all the bristles but the one I'm tuning because they tended to vibrate as well and confuse the tuner.
If you don't have a tuner you can use your computers microphone and one of the many programs available on the web. I found a few at http://www.mymusictools.com/download/instrument-tuner/ (I haven't tried any of these and don't know anything about them but they look like they could do the job nicely).
If you're actually building one, I'd love to see a picture of it! Please post one.