FINAL ASSEMBLY: The Xylorimba is ready!

Today the final assembly of the marimba so far has been completed, I call it a Xylorimba, since the resonators are not yet ready. However, the bars alone sound very nice, and with a final retuning, it is ready to play and practice with!

Here are some pics of the final stage.

This is my method of suspending the bars: Agroove was drilled into the rods, and pieces of insulation foam were cut to just under the bar's width. The groove is deep enough to hold half of the thickness of the foam piece.

Here is a close up. The piece of foam is tightly packed in the groove, it cannot move. The bars are glued on top of the foam.

Right before glueing.

Here it is: The router tuned xylorimba! Phew, what a task...


That's it for now. Later, I will add the resonator tubes, but for the next couple of months, there will be no work on the marimba (apart from practice, I hope!). If you have any questions, feel free place your questions here as a comment.

Tuning done!

Finally, the last two bars had been tuned, and 2 octaves and a fith, that is from C3 at 131.7Hz up to G5 at 789.34Hz, are now available. The last quart was lost in the tuning process, and will maybe be added later.

Here are the measurements. Deviation is given in cents when prefixed with + or -, or the actual versus the desired frequency is stated.

Note	Deviation 1st	Deviation 2nd	Frequency 3rd
G5	+12	-11
F#	+29	-36
F	+19	-12
E	+20	2349 (2655)
D#	+12	-12
D	+23	+11
C#	+10	+33
C	+16	-25
H	+3	+11
A#	+29	1856 (1877)
A4	+21	-7
G#	+3	+27
G	+17	+0
F#	+4	1532 (1490)
F	+2	1435 (1406)
E	+2	1387 (1327)
D#	+11	+48
D	+23	1230 (1182)
C#	+4	+11
C	+8	+44
H	+23	-11
A#	+15	+22
A	+23	-24
G#	+8	793 (836)
G	+12	+5
F#	-12	-7	1801 (1825)
F	+0	-20
E	-9	+1	1635 (1626)
D#	+10	-11	1541 (1534)
D	+22	-41	1447 (1448)
C#	+13	-18	1363 (1367)
C	+5	-	-

So all but 2 bars have a slightly too high fundamental. This is fine, going down is easy. The first quart is also triple tuned to some extent. All others are more or less double tuned.

When the bars have been up in the living room for a couple of weeks, I will fix the fundamental to pitch.

Next up:

• Finish the frame: Need to add a diagonal for stability.
• Suspension and mounting of bars: There will be a suprise!

Stay tuned!