Building cajon

[bongosnotbombs]

I used your cajon and Thomas' article as resources, but I cam across the dimensions for a cajon made and used by Clave y Guaguanco and I used those. Very similar just a touch smaller than yours and Thomas'. My friends larger one uses dimensions from a cajon made by Pacific Coast Percussion. He puts the dimensions on his website. It was the largest cajon dimensions I had and my friend wanted a big cajon. I wanted smaller for portability.

[bongosnotbombs]

[bongosnotbombs]

Actually it looks like Meinl beat me to it!

[roberthelpus]

You need a matching VW bus to transport that in.

[p.a.dogs1]

Here are some cajones, which I built with young people in an educational project.



The conga-style cajones are made from birch plywood - 9 mm and 2,5 mm - the bass-cajon, where you sit on, from 12 mm poplar plywood, 4 mm birch plywood for the frontplate and 6,5 mm birch plywood for the resonance plate - sound holes in the bottom.

[Dicemanb]

Nice looking cajons, what do they sound like? And welcome to the forum....always welcome.

[p.a.dogs1]

Thank you for welcome. But it is almost 2 years ago when I registered myself here .

The sounds:
The biggest conga-cajon (diameter ca. 40 cm) has a very voluminous bass and is really an enrichment in any percussion ensemble. The next one (32 cm diameter) is not such convincing but the proximate one (28 cm diameter) is terrific. The smallest (26 cm diameter) sounds a little flat - maybe it is too high.

The bass cajon´s bass is comparatively dry and has more pressure.

[Thomas Altmann]

Herzlich willkommen, Oliver!

TA

[p.a.dogs1]

Danke, lieber Thomas .

[Ernesto Pediangco]

Using these examples, considering they are crude models that you can have formed at any cabinet builders shop w/ quality laminates w/ dove tail joinery. While many crude cajons like these & like Peruvian & Spanish cajons, they simply use brad nails or screws. I suggest the use of adding a frame of hard woods over the top edges like an over laid frame you use as a drum edge, it can be slightly beveled to produce a better sound edge than just a broad flat one. Using oval head machine screws & nylon inserts into the hard wood sound edge frame, it becomes an easier Cajon to remove & replace the top playing surface. Some people laminate fiber glass w/ wood plys for more strength & every playing surface has differing tone qualities. Some guys wrap skinny rubber hose around the shell / body to assist in holding it firmly & when laying it down, the shell is protected. You can have open bottom tone hole, or add a laminate bottom like a bottom drum head for 2 drum, Bata drum effect and add a tone hole on the side closer to the narrow bottom of the trapesoid shaped cajon.

[Ernesto Pediangco]

Actually it looks like Meinl beat me to it!

OMG...junk ! Get a real Cajon from Peru. Gon Bops imports Atempo cajons from Peru ! Also...go online to fing Percusion Real in Lima , GREAT cajons as well. Asian cajons are garbage, you are better off building your own w/ a reclcyed speaker cabinet.

[Ernesto Pediangco]

Here are some cajones, which I built with young people in an educational project.



The conga-style cajones are made from birch plywood - 9 mm and 2,5 mm - the bass-cajon, where you sit on, from 12 mm poplar plywood, 4 mm birch plywood for the frontplate and 6,5 mm birch plywood for the resonance plate - sound holes in the bottom.

Very Nice !

[bongosnotbombs]

Actually it looks like Meinl beat me to it!

OMG...junk ! Get a real Cajon from Peru. Gon Bops imports Atempo cajons from Peru ! Also...go online to fing Percusion Real in Lima , GREAT cajons as well. Asian cajons are garbage, you are better off building your own w/ a reclcyed speaker cabinet.

I did build my own.

[p.a.dogs1]

Hi Ernesto, thank you for your inspiring comment.

I suggest the use of adding a frame of hard woods over the top edges like an over laid frame you use as a drum edge, it can be slightly beveled to produce a better sound edge than just a broad flat one.

There are hardwood ledges along the top (and also bottom) edges inside. This made it possible to use screws with a little distance from the edges and round them comfortably (look to the foto:).

Using oval head machine screws & nylon inserts into the hard wood sound edge frame, it becomes an easier Cajon to remove & replace the top playing surface.

Our playing sufaces are glued and srewed. The screws act as stabilisators, because pure wood glue does often not resist harder playing practices. There are theories that a combination of screws and silicone (removable) between playing surface and corpus could be perfect.

… when laying it down, the shell is protected.

We will use stripes of a rubber mat, which is made to put it under washing machines.

You can have open bottom tone hole, or add a laminate bottom like a bottom drum head for 2 drum, Bata drum effect and add a tone hole on the side closer to the narrow bottom of the trapesoid shaped cajon.

f. e. instruments of Valter Percussion:
http://www.valterpercussion.com/CongaCajn.htm
http://www.valterpercussion.com/BatCajn.htm

Get a real Cajon from Peru. Gon Bops imports Atempo cajons from Peru !

I know. But there are so many different requirements depending on the preferred sound-character and even haptic feedbacks - it is almost impossible to recommend any maker or model for everybody.

Asian cajons are garbage …

Many spanish cajones as well.

[bongosnotbombs]

I wrote a document a while where I compiled dimensions of several Cuban bajo style cajons.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/37257108/Bajo ... Dimensions

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9ljQy ... ist&num=50

It can be read and downloaded for free.