My Two Instruments

"Christmas Didgeridoo"
by Anna

I wanted to make the wooden saxophone because my dad played the sax when he was in high school.  

My Papa had all the tools we would need, so I went to his house in Ann Arbor after Thanksgiving dinner.   I stayed all weekend.

Two weekends before, we were visiting Papa’s house and I showed him the directions for the wooden saxophone.  Papa went to a lumber yard and found a big piece of maple, which is a good hard wood for musical instruments.  He took it to the carpenter’s shop at the school where he works, and they cut it up into the right size pieces for the project.

The first thing we did was sort the maple pieces into groups.  Then we measured them, and labeled them with their measurements and which piece it was.  Then we took them out to the garage and Papa cut them off to the right length on the power saw.

Then we had to look at the plans and then draw lines on the pieces to show what shape each should be.  We had to do all kinds of math with fractions!  Papa helped me with the measuring and fractions so the pieces would be shaped right.  I had to figure out the lines for sixteenths and eighths and quarters and halves.  It was confusing sometimes.  Papa kept asking me questions and getting me to count the lines to figure out the right measurements.  

Sometimes Papa held the ruler and I marked stuff off.  We each had our own tape measure.  We used sharp pencils and a square to make it all as neat as we could. Finally, we had the lines drawn on the pieces.  We took them in to the garage.

We used the combination sander to shape the pieces.  I did the pieces that were wider, and Papa did the ones that were narrow, because you had to hold your fingers too close to the sander belt.  We sanded pieces for a couple of hours. I vacuumed up a lot of saw dust, and so did Papa!

Once we had the pieces in shape, we glued them together.  We worked together.  I put the glue on the edges, and Papa smeared it off with his finger!  Then we stuck the pieces together.  We took clamps and we pinched all the pieces in to the right spots.  Papa and I did that together, because some of the clamps were too hard to squeeze open, and it took two of us to hold all the stuff.   We let the glue dry for a couple of hours.

We unclamped it, and some of the edges weren’t exactly even.  So we took it to the sander and sanded the whole thing until the edges were smooth. It looked so good it looked like it wasn’t home made!

Then we had to cut the 22 degree angle for the reed.  Papa used the power saw and cut the angle.  He was sweating to death because he was so nervous!  He cut a bunch of little pieces first, and adjusted it a million times before he cut the real instrument, because he only got one cut and we wanted to make it perfect.  It turned out good.

We held a reed on it and tried to make a sound.  It didn’t make any sounds until Papa tried it with the reed upside down.  It made a huge squeak.  We thought that was good enough to go on.  

The next morning, we went to a music store and looked at a real soprano saxophone mouthpiece.  We made sure the 22 degree angle was right, and it was.  Papa traced some shape marks on the sax to sand it some more so it had the right curves.  When we got home, Papa got out a dremel tool with a little sander on it.  He did some very careful sanding on the mouthpiece.

I measured and marked the lines so we could drill the finger holes and cut off the end at the right length.  Then we went back out in the garage.  Papa got the drill press all set up.  He held the saxophone, and I drilled all six holes, VERY slowly.  Then Papa cut the saxophone off to be 13 and 13/16 inches, right where I marked it.

Papa and I went to the hardware store and got the #2 by 3/8 stainless steel machine screw for the elastic cord to tie on to hold the reed.  We also bought a can of stain.  I picked Colonial Maple.

Back at the house, we measured and I marked where the crew goes.  Papa drilled a little hole and put the screw in.  Then we took the screw back out and I stained the whole saxophone with 3 coats.  After it dried, Papa found another hole in the plans we forgot about, so we used the square and the ruler to mark it.  We drilled that hole and Papa did the counter-sinking with a bigger drill.  He had to be really careful not to go all the way through or make any splinters.  We touched the hole up with more stain.  Then I put Treewax on the whole thing.  Papa had to do the polishing because he had to push hard to buff the wax.

Then we put the screw back in and I helped Papa tie the knots because his fingers were too fat.  Then we put the reed back in.  We tried everything, but it made NO SOUND!  Papa said since there was no sound, it could only play on the rests, and I said it should be called “The quiet saxophone”

We were disappointed, and decided to make another instrument.  I had plans for the Shepherd’s Flute and the Didgeridoo.  I chose the didgeridoo.

Papa and I went to the lumber yard and bought a ten foot PVC pipe, and had the man cut it so it would fit in the car.  We also bought reducers for each end.  They didn’t have 2 inch to 1 inch reducers, so we bought 2 inch to inch 1 and ½ inch reducers and also bought 1 inch reducers to fit in them.

Back at home I measured the pipe for 36 inches and Papa cut it with a power saw.  Papa told me how, and I cleaned and glued all the pipe pieces together.  Making it took about 20 minutes total.

Grandma had a bottle of Mod Podge glue in her craft stuff.  I decided to make it a Christmas Didgideridoo, so I cut drawings out of wrapping paper and decorated the pipe.  Grandma and Uncle Bob and Papa cut out a few, but I cut out most of them.  Then I glued them on.  I chose silver colored duct tape to make stripes at each end.  I thought it was kind of like silver ribbon on a package.

It makes a really weird sound.  Whatever you do into one end comes out louder from the other.  I think it is louder because all the noise only goes through one spot, instead of all over every which way, like when you yell.  

Papa did the typing on this paper, and I did the speaking.