How to Make Wooden Box Drums

Wooden box drum or Cajon is a wooden box like a percussion instrument, which is played by slapping its front or rear faces with the hands. Now as these faces are made up of thin plywood, a sound gets generated and thus we are able to produce a beat. These kinds of instruments are believed to have originated from Peru and bought forward to the other areas from these only, but because of their sound quality, these are even today bought in use for producing sound or music. If you wish to make one such wooden drum box for yourself, following are the tips which can be bought into use:-

How to Make Wooden Box Drums

1. Gather the Materials:-

Gather the materials first of all. You can use plywood for making drum faces and you can use glue for gluing. A wire set will also be needed besides the making tools and rods, table saw, screws, sandpaper, paint, varnish etc. All these materials should be kept in advance to assist wooden box making process.

2. Cut the Sheets from Wood:-

Now we will cut the sheets of plywood to desired size. The sheets should have a thickness of 0.5-0.75 inches for the five sides of wooden drum box and for the sixth side; we will have much more thin sheet of plywood nailing it as a striking surface. A hole will also be made at the back side to serve as a place of sound output.

3. The Main Approach:-

Most of the modern wooden drum boxes are made with rubber feet and several screws screwed at the top of percussion wood.  If you look physically, the box will look as any other wooden box, but the technique of thick wood and holes in it that we have bought into use will make it generate sound while making it act as a perfect percussion instrument. Several stretched cords can be pressed against the top of drum box in order to make it generate a buzzing like sound.

4. The Structure of a Wooden Box Drum:-

The structure of a wooden box is composed of a thin layer of plywood that we have mentioned in step 2. Now when we have trimmed plywood of desired thickness and size, we arrange it in a box like form. The hole at the back of it makes it give different sounds when we beat different parts of front surface of this drum box.

5. Generate the Sound:-

You can achieve sound like a bass drum hitting the middle of playing surface and higher tone sound.  Hitting the surface closer to top will generate a separate kind of sound. You will soon get accustomed of different kind of sounds that it generates by beating it from desired place. You can even attach strings, rods and wires watching diagrams and pictures of different kind of wooden box drums as each manufacturer makes several new experiments with his drum boxes.

6. Use It for Any Concert you wish: –

The height of a wooden box drum should be kept as tall as 18 inches. The player who plays a wooden drum box will sit on the drum box and then he will hit the front surface. The wooden drum box played this way serves to be a very much versatile percussion instrument for all.