How to make a cajon with your own hands?

Music is one of the most amazing phenomena in the entire history of mankind. Sounds that can not only inform a person about something, but also delight his hearing, can be extracted from everywhere, as evidenced by the prehistory of the creation of instruments.

Cajon is a vivid proof of this - invented by slaves at the beginning of the 19th century to perform ritual music, it has become one of the most popular musical instruments in Latin America. Evolving from a simple wooden fruit box to an elaborate box of strings, the cajon has become a true symbol of Peru and the flamenco dance it is used to perform.

It doesn't take too much effort to make a cajon at home.

The first step is to decide on the material: traditionally, this tool is made from solid sheets of wood, but ordinary plywood is also suitable for home production. A circular saw is ideal for cutting the walls of the box and the resonator hole. You can process and polish plywood using a grinder and sandpaper - this will reduce the risk of driving a splinter under your skin while playing. To fasten the cut rectangles, you need to purchase wood glue, screeds for firmly fixing the sheets, nails or self-tapping screws. You may need a drill and screwdriver as working tools.

Basically, a drum snare is used to achieve this effect, which can be found in any music store, but regular guitar strings, fish line or wire are also fine as a budget option. To hear the sound of "sand" all the time, it is recommended to cut the snare in half and fix it in relation to the tap at an angle so that the plywood touches it with each impact.

For more sonic variety, modern musicians use a variety of accessories, such as a pedal for additional foot play. Thus, when performing music, one of the hands can be free or used for various sound transitions.

The instructions for making this musical instrument are very simple.

• The first step in any business is drawing. Measure seven times - this is exactly about the cajon, because the comfort of the musician completely depends on its size: it is unlikely that it will work for a long time to sit on a too narrow and unstable surface, so the proportions must be very clearly observed.
• The width and height of the cajon are chosen according to the height of the musician who will play on it, but the average parameters are 33x33x45 cm. Thus, for the side plates the ideal size is 43x32 cm, for the front and back - 45x33 cm, for the top and bottom - 33x32 cm.In this case, the thickness of the walls must be taken into account: the front plate - tapa - should be 3 to 5 mm thick, while everyone else is 12 to support the weight of an adult. Such a difference in thickness is due to the fact that tapa must vibrate when struck, otherwise the sound will turn out to be completely deaf.
• In order to strengthen the frame, wooden blocks are sometimes used: they have no effect on the musical properties of the instrument, so for reliability, such insurance will not hurt. Pressed by human weight, the box will still be much more stable if you attach 4 cork or rubber legs up to 1 cm high to its bottom wall.

It is not difficult to assemble a cajon with your own hands, the main thing is to divide all the work into several stages.

• First, the frame is glued and fixed, but not the whole one: the tapa is screwed on at the very end of the assembly. Brackets are nailed to the side walls at a distance of 6-7 cm from the top in order to fix the bar with snares with their help. All this must be mounted so that the parts of the snare protrude slightly beyond the edges of the box and touch the tapas at an angle of 45 ° - so they will be constantly involved. To be able to periodically "tune" the snare, you can attach it to the tuning pegs. After that, tapu should be nailed: all internal work is completed.
• The last stage is the legs. Piglets made of plywood, rubber or cork will be ideal shock absorbers for the box, because when moving under the weight of a person, it can be scratched or damaged.
• When all the walls are fixed and the cajon is firmly on the ground, you can round off its upper corners.so they don't cut into your thighs while sitting: coarse and fine grit sandpaper is ideal for solving this problem.
• A completely finished musical instrument can be safely coated with paint and varnish - so each sound extracted from it will seem brighter.

The pleasure of playing a completely DIY instrument is unmatched!

How to make a cajon with your own hands, see the video below.