Will's Poor Uses of Time: August 2021

Crappy Kidz "Guitar" to Ukulele

Just took two of the tuners out and filed some new slots.

Portable Reed Organ Mod

For more about reed organs, visit my Estey portable post.

I've wanted a portable reed organ for years. They're more than loud enough to be heard on the street, and they compete well with other musicians who play instruments that can actually be heard without electricty (not guitar.) They're the only keyboard instrument with good range that can be heard from afar and not simultaneously weigh as much as a young cow.

I swiped this "Imperiale" reed organ off Craigslist. It seems like it's from the 50's or so, from what I can find online, and not of any exceptional value. Before I did anything to it, I had to find out how it worked.

The instrument itself sits inside a superstructure that includes the pedals and bellows. It's easy to lift the whole thing out. The holes you can see convey suction from the bellows below.

It's extremely simple. The keyboard it its own structure which sits on top of the box containing the reeds. When you press a key, it pushes down one of the many pins below:

...which in turn shoves a wooden block out of the way of a hole, above which is a reed. These blocks are freely set under a row of simple wire springs. In the above picture, you can also see the shudder which (sort of) controls volume, and the way it's lifted up by the knee lever. To remove a reed, you open the shudder and reach inside with a special hook. One didn't make noise when I got it, and it was as simple and taking it out and blowing it off.

The above wooden box mates directly to the wooden platform in the second picture, with a paper gasket between the two. The suction is never enough to leak through any one valve and create a sound.

My goal for this thing was to make it more portable, and that's what I did, probably in March. Since it was never meant to fold up, I had to do some strange things, such as having the legs fold in two places.

Loose pieces are stored inside with the pedals.

It's necessary to attach six wooden crutches with wingnuts to keep the legs from wobbling. The knee lever attaches with a blind nut and thumbscrew.

The steel rods attaching the pedals to the bellows have been replaced with rope. When everything is screwed down, you pin the legs open with the crossbar the pedals are attached to and flip the whole thing up.

Setting it up is a little more involved than I would like, though it still only takes a few minutes. The whole thing can be carried around on one of those little dollies old ladies use for their groceries, or in a bike trailer. I've done a lot of busking with it. A lot of people ask me if it's a piano...

Concert Zither Rehab

I spotted this zither in the literal dusty corner of a music store in June, and ended up scoring it. It was pretty messed up, with cracks on top and bottom, as well as badly scalloped and buzzy frets. It had all of its strings, though, as well as spares, and there was no really bad warping or damage.

Original condition with cracks:

First task was to get the strings off.

The bridge and nut(?) were just pieces of soft wire held in their grooves by the strings. I tried to keep the strings in order by stringing them up onto one of the wires like so many trout. After all of them were off, I boiled them like you sometimes hear bass players doing- complete new sets are well over $100. I wish I took a picture, because the water came out completely yellow and scummed over with the finger grease of decades past...

Once the strings were set aside, I pulled out all of the various many tuning pins, as well as the machines for the 5 fretboard strings. The body of the instrument was scrubbed with water, and metal parts with wet polishing cloths.

Maker's mark?

The top crack, as well as some separation of the binding around the sound hole, I was able to make imperceptible with wood filler and a brown sharpie. The crack on the back needed to be glued, and sharpied over as well, but came out more noticeable. I filled the worst of the frets with tiny dabs of JB-Weld, then carefully filed them to shape, which has been working out so far- the buzzing is gone.

I did replace the fretboard strings: I took the old ones in and got guitar strings of matching gauges. Stringing the harp strings was a minor nightmare. They're tuned in fifths, but different charts I was looking at often disagreed about the exact octaves. A lot of the old strings were just too far gone, but I ended up making do with the many extras. It seems normal to use a mixture of steel and wound nylon.

Lots of the tuning pins were too loose to hold tune. I ended up putting a little receipt paper in every slot. I also couldn't find a tuning hammer that would work with them: the ordinary autoharp one is too small. However, I was able to find a hex socket that fit them fine, as well as an allen key that it would jam down onto. So, below you can see the custom tuning hammer. I also decided I needed to put new latches on the case, since I don't have its old key.

It polished up really well.

It's said that most zithers like this in the U.S. are either from the 1880's or something more like the 1920's-30's. I have also read that oval sound holes were only common on German/Austrian instruments, and compared to others online from the 1880's, it seems reasonable that this might be that old. Hopefully I'll learn to play it a bit...

Suitcase Drum Set

Idea owes to mikereetz on Instructables. On his page he talks about choosing a suitcase, attaching the bass pedal, etc.

All of the drum stuff and hardware is strictly crapola. The snare came from a First Act kit (for kids,) and I painted it green (to be cool.) The stool was a folding kitchen-type deal that I hacked down to fit in the case. Special flair includes a 50-cent cowbell from the junk store and a "ride" redolent of a pie tin which I put a machine screw through and mounted on a 4th-of-July flagpole.

It's about as light to carry around as an electric guitar. Setup time: about 3 minutes.

See it in action

The Mysterious Free Boat

I did not make this boat. Instead, I noticed it with a free sign posted a couple of blocks from my house, so I got some folks and we carried it home. It's made out of very flimsy ply and held together with gorilla glue and bathtub caulk. All I really did was to add a second crossmember and the oarlocks you can see in the picture. It leaks a tiny bit, but I could row it around for hours.

Shrimp Ecosystem

This was based on an old Make Magazine article (this was back when said rag was actually really good.) The idea was originally that you would seal the jar, creating a self-sufficient chamber worthy of flying through space, or something. You put in what plants you have or can find, some shrimp, some pond scum (which is supposed to have critters in it,) and some other stuff.

I put everything in in January, so the pond scum didn't seem very viable at first. Nevertheless, after a few months, lots of strange swimmers actually started to appear. It only took me a week to chicken out and take the lid off of the jar, so I'll never know if my biosphere would have worked out, but some of the shrimp actually survived for about 7 months without any further input of anything. Now, in August, the jar is a bit of a wasteland...

Pictures are probably from May: