Physics

🎶This is the way we make the springs, make the springs, make the springs!🎶

Here's an overview of how I fabricated the striker action return springs.  The striker actions were made from salvaged upright piano dampers.  It was very handy that they had return springs, but those springs were too stiff and brittle for our purposes.  Here's a picture of damper arms with the original springs:

This is all about actuators -- electromagnets, solenoids, pneumatic motors, things that move a thing to make a sound or produce an effect.

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.

I had to modify pallet magnet assemblies for non-organ projects. I removed valve stoppers and riveted extension levers to the swing arm to use them as actuators. The blue object is the electromagnet made from blue tape wrapped around the copper coil. That copper wire is about half the thickness of a human hair and is wound around a small white plastic spool, about 1/4" in diameter.

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.