Xylophone toy build

our two-year-old quite likes percussion or 
at least he likes to hit things that make   us sound so I'm thinking of making some kind of 
xylophone like thing using some flooring scraps   now this sounds a lot better if there's some 
kind of cavity underneath it so I've got two   supports worth favorite bands on top and then 
if I close that cavity a bit more and if I use   a softer mallet and then I've been watching some 
which we've got on talking about this vibraphone   and the pedals on his are sort of more of this 
shape although they're made out of metal and   I think that aside from lowering a pitch might 
actually make it sound a little bit better too   here's a shorter one I think I got too much out 
on this one piano tuner app seems to be able to   pick up the pitch of it so I'll be able to 
tune it to so then I got all carried away   trying to make plates that are actually tuned 
to it this affects scale and I was having all   kinds of difficulty because these things are 
actually much more sensitive to tuning than I   thought they would be much harder to tune than a 
pipe organ eventually I just gave up on that and   decided to just go for a series of sounds that 
kind of sounds well together I think I need to   shorten this one of it I want to make a box for 
this telephone roughly like this and I've marked   were the nodes of vibrations are for the various 
plates and I placed these sticks on top of roughly   where I marked in nodes of vibrations and that 
tells me what angle I need to join the case at I placed all the ends in the jig the same 
way and started a quarter inch from the edge   which is from here and from here so that 
is unfortunately asymmetrical because the   thick part is here and here so I'll have to 
cut the end pieces asymmetric the same way I kinda ran out of clamping options for this 
last piece so hopefully this carriage bolt   clamped in with a wingnut it goes through 
a hole in here will hold it without falling   down maybe that came out a bit too heavy 
so I'm cutting away a bit on the bottom   sorry for getting out of frame on 
this one but the priority is just   get it together before the glue sets and now 
it's time to add some retroactive precision so I still need a good way of supporting these 
things that doesn't dampen the vibration on the   real marimba these things are supported with 
strings that go through the sides but that   will do for a kid's toy it'll get destroyed 
in no time so I've been experimenting with   supporting him from below this is felt from what 
used to be a world pillow that we accidentally   put through the wash I also tried rubber 
bands and thinner felt this sounds by far   the best but it's a little wobbly this was not 
felt before I drilled holes in these things I   want to fine-tune where the nodes are this 
spot is the deadest in terms of fundamental now how to screw those down without screwing up 
the sound I think some washers like that work okay   but I think the kids are just gonna pull them out 
like this so if I set these in a much deeper hole   that will make them relatively inaccessible 
so that still sounds pretty acceptable even   with the screws in I still needed some sort of 
xylophone hammer for that and I made that so   it's all site great on the striking surface 
and they're shaped just on the belt sander

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