Melodic Tongue Drum
The techniques that go into making this drum are similar to those you’d use for building a small box. The difference with this project is that you get to play with it when you’re done.
The tongue drum is one of the world’s oldest known instruments. They’ve been a part of many cultures for thousands of years. The idea behind the tongue drum is simple — a hollow box, or “sound chamber” reverberates when the individual tongues, or soundboard, are struck. On some tongue drums, the tone the tongues produce is varied by making each one a different length and width. On this design, I opted for form over function and made the tongues symmetrical in appearance. The tone is varied by removing material from the back face of the toe or heel of each tongue.
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What You Get:
- 9 printable (digital) pages of step-by-step instructions
- Over 45 full-color photos and illustrations and exploded views
- Cutting diagram and materials list
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Imperial Plans
The United States Customary System of Units (USCS or USC), more commonly referred to as the English or Imperial system, is the standard set of units for our plans. It uses inches and feet for measurement. This is the one you probably want if you are in the United States, and it is the one we have traditionally offered on this website.
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Metric Plans
The International System of Units (SI), more commonly referred to as the metric system, is the alternative set of units that we have available for some of our plans. It uses millimeters, centimeters, and meters for measurement. This is the one you probably want if you are outside the United States. These plans are provided by our business partner, Australian Woodsmith, and are based on the original Woodsmith plan. However, dimensions and other elements of the plan may vary between the metric and standard versions. Be sure to double-check the plan before building.
![Metric System Representation](/assets/img/330px-SI_base_units.avif)
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Premium Plans
All of the information that you need to build our plans can be found in the standard plan. However, if you want even more granular detail to make your job easier, you should consider our premium plans. These come with additional shop diagrams that we drew when creating the prototypes. Shop drawings are not available for every plan.