Musical instruments

I love making the type of musical instruments you won't often see.

I have made some electric dulcimers and biscuit tin guitars to sell in music shops in and around Pendle, I may make more.

Steampunk guitar

this is an old fender.

having a forge I was able to manufacture the metal parts. The taps put the steam into punk.

Electric Stick Dulcimer

A Stick Dulcimer is a diatonic fretted instrument with 3 strings. they owe their origins to the North American Appalachian Dulcimer that sits on your knee and to the southern American and African 3 string instruments.

The word dulcimer is derived from the Greek word dulce (sweet) and the Latin word melos (sound).

These are usualy open tuned to DAD, but do have other tunings and can be chord strummed or plucked like a banjo.

The ones shown have an Iroko body and a mahogany neck. They have a heat blued and polished steel tail piece that fits ball type strings, I have used 0.012, 0.014, 023 but different strings do give you a different sound.

Electric Stick Dulcimer - JS2 shape

(The right handed ones look just like this, use a mirror to see what they look like)

Cherry Wood, Pear Shape Dulcimer

(Since taking the photo I've painted the screws are black to hide them)

Gemshorn

Made from cow horn rather than the traditional Gem, this horn is a type of vessel flute and is musically related to the ocarina.

Kantele

This Kantele has a solid body made from cherry wood with an open resonating chamber cut out from the back.

It can be played on your lap, but for a louder resonance place it on a table, or even better a wooden box.

A five string kantele has only five notes, and is usually tuned to a diatonic scale, you have access to the eight notes of a scale - rather than the twelve of a chromatic scale.

(Two for sale, one like this and one steel pegged/strung, at Louandys)

3 String Biscuit Tin Guitar

This is a Cadburys Tin Guitar, just like a cigar box but sounds more...well...tinny. These have the same fretting as a six string guitar and a protected Piezo pickup for less interference

Available for sale here.

3 Hole Whistle

This type of whistle is usually played alongside a drum, as you only need one hand to play it. I have not taken pictures of the 6 hole flutes, but they look similar to these.

End blown copper pipe flute/whistle

This was developed to make a working flute/recorder as cheaply as possible in order to teach young people the principles of making instruments. I designed a jig so all the hard work of positioning correctly was done beforehand. The design works with plastic tubing as well.