Enough Bars for Now......Let's Talk About the Frame!

Hello everyone!  I know it may seem like this project has seen a real hiatus these days due to the lack of regular updates to the blog, but never fear!  I am happy to report that in this downtime, I have actually completed the rough tuning of all 61 marimba bars!  Well...kinda.  I'll have to redo a few of the bars since they somehow didn't keep their pitch, but.........details.  ;)

The bars still have a ways to go, though.  All 61 bars still need to be fine-tuned, which is a process that I anticipate being less tedious than the rough tuning.  The difficulty in fine-tuning is obviously being patient with bringing down the pitch of the fundamental tone and the overtones, and being careful not to overshoot...going too flat is bad news, as I'd have to redo the bar completely.  I actually did this to five of the bars while rough-tuning, so I'll likely have to remake those later on, but I'll plan to save that job for later.  Since I have a full set of bars at least cut out, I can move on to another part of the project that I've really been looking forward to.

I decided that the best step to work on was the design of the marimba's frame.  To do this, I called upon the skills of my good friend Nathan Baker to render a model of the marimba frame plans I had sketched on graph paper.  Like a pro, he used a program called Sketchup to take the drawings I had done and make a 3-D model of the frame!  Here is what we came up with!

Disclaimer:
Yes, that is my face on a model up there.  That is not my real body.  :O



Anyway, a few things to note about this design as seen here.  These pictures obviously do not have the resonators added in on the marimba.  I haven't design those quite yet, but they will certainly be on the real marimba.

Also, note the long bar across the length of the frame at the bottom.  This bar is for structural support, but there will be also be an additional one going across the length in the same fashion, at the top of the frame.  This should eliminate any side to side "wobble" motion that could result from a sideways push to the frame.  Also, there will be a piece going diagonally from the base of the large end of the marimba up to the underside of the middle of the top of the frame.  This piece will bear some of the weight that the bars and resonators will put on those rails that will hold the bars.

Over all, this marimba will be just shy of nine feet long when it is constructed.  That's a big instrument! I really can't wait to see how it turns out!

That being said, progress has proved slow over the last few months, and I have school work to blame for that.  Only a few more months and I will graduate, and then I'll have plenty of time to work on this awesome instrument! (amidst working and preparing for professional school, at least...)  Hopefully I'll be able to work on this before then, but I'll be sure to post about my progress (or in case of no progress, at least my thoughts about moving forward) and keep you loyal followers updated.  :)

To those who do read these posts and continue to wish me well on this project, thank you so much!  I love you guys!!  :D