I Digress Yet Again

For the whole both of you who follow my ramblings, sorry for the long pause between posts. Stupid holidays.

This digression is at least still in the realm of music. I've been unemployed more than employed over the last year, so I didn't really have big bucks for Christmas gifts. People always say how much they like hand made gifts, so I thought I'd see if it was true. I've been making cajones, which are Peruvian box drums, to give as gifts. I went down to my exotic wood dealer to see what they had that would fit the sort of drum I wanted to make.

I picked up some maple for the sides and top and some red oak and cherry for the tappa (the drumming surfaces). I also went to Home Depot and got some 3/4 in square stock for the frame and some red oak "quarter round" to execute an idea I had for the corners. I put quarter round in quotes because it's not actually quarter round, which is an even quarter circle in profile. This stuff I got is longer along half the curve making one side 3/4 and the other 1/2. I had chosen aspects of designs I had seen that I liked and thrown in some things I thought were original (until I saw that other people had been building cajons that way all along)

First, I cut the sound hole in one of the sides. Traditionally they're in the back, but I want two drumming surfaces, front and back, so I'll have to go with the side. My design has a recessed bottom and the top needs to be raised above the top of the sides to accommodate the corner trim, so I cut some of my frame stock and glued it flush with the top and brought it up a half inch from the bottom so I could recess the bottom.