A mark tree is a percussion instrument consisting of a series of small chimes. It is used to add some musical colour to a piece and is played by sweeping a finger through the the series of chimes.
For future flute recordings, I've decided to make myself one by using aluminium flat bars. So I headed to the local hardware store to buy some. I started to cut the first bar to a 20cm piece. I then carry on cutting 34 more pieces reducing the length by about 3mm each time.
The band saw left some burr on the end of each aluminium section so I had to sand them off. I then made a little jig out of an off-cut of wood to make sure I'm drilling a hole at the same place on each of the sections. The holes are then drilled on the drill press.
Once all sections are ready, I went on and cut a little section of pine wood. I have 35 bars of 1cm width and I want 3mm gap between them so I need:
35 + (34 * 0.3) = 45.2cm of wood. I added 5cm on each side so the total length is 55cm (rounded down).
The cut wood is then sanded to clean its surface off all the dirt and stain.
With a pencil, I then marked the location of each holes to be drilled on the board. They are spaced 1 + 0.3 = 1.3cm, starting at a bit less than 5cm from the edge.
I then marked a line with a homemade marking gauge. This will make sure my holes will be aligned.
Back onto the drill press to drill those 35 holes with a 2mm bit followed by sanding again to remove all marks on the wood. Before continuing, I applied a layer of oil to the wood to protect it and reveal the grain.
With a thin fishing line, I started to attached the bar chimes to the wooden frame. It was a bit time consuming to get them aligned enough but I got something acceptable in the end.
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