Skip to main content

The Rattle Project: Finale

The handle installation went smoothly, insert the handle into the bottom hole, using combinations of popcorn, beans, wood beads and bone beads thru the top hole and continue pushing the handle into the top hole.

Finishing the rattles was similar to that of the rawhide rattle. Leather/suede from Hobby Lobby and thrift stores, feathers (from a ringneck pheasant that I shot in 1968 during my hunter-gatherer days),fur from a friend's discarded coat, wood and plastic beads from a recycle store, pieces of deer antler that my father gave me years ago, the hair (to imitate horse hair) was from wigs I found at a thrift store at Halloween.
Leather glue was mostly used for attaching all of these. There were times when the glue needed to set immediately so I applied super glue and sprayed a fine mist of ammonia to accelerate it.

   I'll be shipping these off to Stan soon.
My next project? I'll be cleaning the drum room😬











Comments

  1. I'm glad it's done. What a very involved affair with all of the feathers, beans, leather, well. I'm sure Stan will be impressed. Question we can talk about Sunday on Duo: can you change the tone/sound by adjusting the type and or amount of beans, etc, you put in it? Can Stan even do it if he wanted?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ammonia accelerates super glue...I did not know that! Your rattles look great! What a good project!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Amadinda

  The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators. There was no reason for this project other than to see if I could make a simple mallet instrument. The box was made from plywood (which also acted as the resonators) and the bars were made from maple.  Since this was to be a true xylophone, the bars were all of equal width. Tuning was done by cutting the bars to different lengths and removing material from the bottom. Using a router I created a sort of 'stepped pyramid' instead of the traditional arc cut found on marimba or xylophone bars.  Cutting the underside is not only for tuning but it focuses the pitch and creates the characteristic overtones of the instrument. Since I wanted to play this with other 'Western' instruments, I chose to use a pentatonic scale of 2 2/5 octaves (C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#). Two people sit on either side of the instrument and strike the ends of