Xylophone windchime from a children's toy

Here is a quick, easy and inexpensive project that will bring back fond memories of childhood for almost anyone. Bright colors and memorable tones make this a nice gift for someone of almost any age and interest.

Any mention of this project must provide a link to www.zieak.com with credit to Ryan McFarland.

Materials:
Old toy xylophone (actually more accurately a Metallophone)
Beaded key chains
3 feet of beaded chain
2 oval compression sleeves for cable
Piece of scrap metal or wood

Tools:
Eye protection
Side cutting or diagonal cutting pliers
Power drill
Bits
Vice grip pliers
Square and tape measure
Hand saw for metal or wood

Comments

[sunshiine]

What a great idea! I love this!!!!!

[Bubblebee]

Nice idea and I like your choice of materials .

[SugarTeen52]

Hi, I work on miniature projects a lot. I'm hoping to make miniature wind chimes, but I can't find anything inaffordable enough (like household materials such as paper clips) that makes a nice jangly noise. Do you have any suggestions?

[evil_jweller]

check out the local hardware store. Copper pipe is relatively cheap, looks nice if you polish it up, and can be tuned by cutting to length. Maybe a little bit large for what you want, but wander around the plumbing section and you should get some ideas.

[SugarTeen52]

Wow, cool -- thanks!

[SugarTeen52]

P.S. I'm using the same loop for the wind chimes as I do for my dream catchers in an instructable I made, so that might give you an idea of the size range I'm talking about.

[headlessbubble]

neat, I want to try it

[bill95]

I wonder whether putting the chimes in a different order would make it more musical - C, E, G, B, D, F, A, C (or purple, dark green, yellow, red, blue, light green, orange, purple)

[Kiribub]

Nice job! If you remove say, every other bar, you might eliminate some dissonance, and have enough to make a second set.