Instrument

Instrument

Any project that produces sound mechanically or electronically — xylophones, glockenspiels, organ components, MIDI‑driven devices, or hybrid acoustic/electronic builds.

Hippie hair hammer heads

This adds so much fun to the Glockenbox!  The strikers are made from piano damper levers and flanges.  I removed the damper felt and rotate the heads to use the set screws to strike the glockenspiel bars, then I thought they really needed googley eyes.  Then they looked a little bald.  I added colored plush material for hair, and the glockendudes were born!

I created 32 individual unique striker heads, some of them have names.  This one kind-of looks like Jean Luc Picard to me.

Horizontal glock strikers

I wanted to share a close‑up of the hammer mechanism for my glockenspiel.

There are two levers involved in the action. The first lever is attached directly to the electromagnet frame. When the magnet is energized, it pulls this metal lever upward. That motion lifts the butt end of a second lever—a wooden seesaw lever—which has a felt pad at the butt end and the hammer head mounted on the opposite end. When the butt end goes up, the hammer end goes down and strikes the bar.

Resonator box

This is the second iteration of the resonator box.  Initially I started with the concept of my Deagan Orchestrion Xylophone's resonator box and laid-out the bars side by side with a uniform gap between them and used nails for mounting pins on the top and nails between each bar to space them on the bottom.  I essentially painted myself into a corner by making such a tight footprint, and the bars really didn't have much freedom to resonate.  Eventually I took the whole thing apart and started over.

Orguinette

I picked up this fascinating machine from eBay and found that it is made by The Mechanical Orguinette Co., New York.  I'm going to do some research, but I envision making a wonky mini MIDI thing, or maybe a pipe tester.

Lignoutron

MIDI-playing automated electromechanical xylophone.  This was made from an old maple xylophone.  I scrapped everything but the bars and built a new resonator box and action rail, used old piano hammer actions and fabricated maple hammer heads and return springs, and repurposed old pipe organ pallet magnets for actuators.

Organ structure and components

This chapter describes the physical structure of the BIG ORGAN: its size, frame, pipe families, bellows, wind chests, and percussion.
It serves as a reference for all mechanical and acoustic subsystems.

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