this one turned out really well. it started out as a plank of wenge, a beautiful dark chocolate, light chocolate striped tropical hardwood that was 8 inches by 6 inches and fully an inch thick. then i rounded the corners with my router and sanded it a bit. actually you can still see the bandsaw marks slightly on the back. it has my usual highly engineered bridge system which is bound to the plank with two furniture bolts.

this is the ex-bridgable feature. if you undo the two furniture bolts the entire bridge and the tuned keys come off as a unit. the kalimba stays in tune. this would be good if you wanted to work on the wood and make it prettier.

the pickup system on this kalimba is all contained in the wood. the jack is placed in a slightly angled hole(to avoid hitting the center pressure bar bolt)on the top edge of the kalimba. it is held in this hole by a set screw. this hole communicates to the forstner bit dug, shallow hole on the front middle of the kalimba face under the tines. this is the best place for the pickup to *hear* the keys evenly.

the pickup, which is a brass disc an inch and an eighth in diameter with piezo crytal on one side, is soldered to co-axial wire which is soldered to the jack. over this is an aluminum bar which has been secured by two brass wood screws. this bar has been tapped to accept another set screw and keeper nut to apply just the right amount of downward pressure on the piezo disc for maximum volume.

does this all sound like a lot of work? well, it is, but the results are worth it. this kalimba sounds great and and it all can be undone to work on if there ever was a problem.(there never has been a problem yet)

this kalimba is currently tuned to C major but could be adjusted upward a bit. it has buzzers, which add a sweet sizzle to the notes, but since they are the *gravity fed graphic buzzalizer* type they can be turned off by simply leaning the kalimba down.

to see the front side of this instrument go here:

http://www.ekalimba.com/forsale2.html

 this one is sold now.

at ekalimba.com i put up a new page:

for sale

and there is a lot of new stuff  on the index page as well.

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