Tongue Drum with pic

[Pete Simmons]

With Ken's help I tried a Drum. Padauk and Maple. I cut the Whale top design out about 3/8 deep with a 35 watt laser. Made is very easy for a scroll saw to finish. Then widen the kerf up with a jig saw. The name is laser cut letter inlays. They work out very nice and are not very hard to do. Drum sounds great. Thanks Ken for your help.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Hi Pete, I'm making one of those and wondered if you have any suggestions on tuning. I don't have any proper "mallets" to test it yet so I can't tell what it's going to sound like. Any info. mucho appreciated. Yours looks great with the laser engraving and all! Thanks Alan in Md.

[Jason Tuinstra]

Wow, Pete you work pretty fast. It looks great!

[Pete Simmons]

Alan - I found out while building that they sound bad even when clamped up into the box shape. Once you glue it up the sound totally changes. No need for any special mallet. Just strike it sharply with a finger.

Tuning is hit or miss. I think to lower the note you could cut a little more near the base line thus making the tuning fork a little bigger for a lower tone. The other way is to remove material from the inside but that is difficult to do once it is glued together. I do not plan to tune this one as it sounds fine as is.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

O.K. Pete, thanks for the info. I may experiment with a hole in the side to see how that changes the sound. Mine doesn't seem to have any volume to the sound but the notes don't sound too bad.

[Don Baer]

Alan;

The drum beaters are actually made from inserting dowels into small superballs that you can purchase at you local toy store. Here is a link o a site on making tongue drums.

[Ken Salisbury]

Alan;

The drum beaters are actually made from inserting dowels into small superballs that you can purchase at you local toy store. Here is a link o a site on making tongue drums.

I buy "superballs" at WalMart - 99¢ for 8. Drill ¼" hole and super glue on 12" long dowel.

[Ken Salisbury]

Great Job Pete - glad I was able to help.