MBIRA

this is the finished Sansa,kalimba,mbira or whatever you might know it as .....took me a month and a week to make….rather happy with the turn out. it’s made of a single block of beech that had a nice winged pattern in the grain. used a recut band saw to cut the top and bottom, then pasted the paper design I came up with on each of the 3 pieces. cut them out on a band saw then made the sound hole, and glued those together…then I sanded them down…..then by hand…..then I stained it using Tung oil and steel wool…....the bars where once from an old rake that I had….just tore those off because of the lack of basic tools…...then I cut them all to about 5 inches, grinded them smooth(some what cause they’re still pretty sharp!) then I put them in the bridge…I like this….really bring out the grain of the Tung oil varnished beech wood…..has a really nice sound to it, and since I added some little cork feet, that I cut using a band saw from a wine cork, it can now have its sound amplified just by placing it on a large window, a wall, door, wooden box or a car window that awesome or what ????
.......BUT THE THING IS….....it broke ….the stupid bridge system I came up with in a day didn’t work…I couldn’t loosen it and was forced to cut the bolts with a hack saw….it ruined the top portion of this but nothing a good sanding/refinishing wouldn’t cure. I’m just hoping it’s fixed, to my abilities, by the end of the week of memorial day. other wise going to have to do that over the summer.

-- I'm a noble savage