Wind chimes

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I've just been reading Bilko's thread about wind chimes in the 'Other Chatter' forum and it got me thinking ''How hard would it be to make some?''
Or even a musical pipe?

Anyone got any ideas? Or even better, some previous experience?
What type of wood would be best, bearing in mind we'd be talking about hollowing out lengths up to a foot long, maybe longer?
And how exactly would one go about hollowing them out?

Any tips or advice would be great


Thanks

 

[British Red]

Switch,

Take lengths of elder mate. they can be hollowed out by knocking a thin dowel through the soft pith. For a quick result, tap a length of bolt rod through and, once through, slide back and forth to make a neat inner tube

Red

 

[underground]

My sister in law has some beautiful ones (wind chimes) which seem to me to play 'silent sigh' by Badly Drawn Boy the entire night whenever we stay there..

From what I can tell, the tubes are of bamboo of about 40 - 50mm diameter, at different lengths on an outer ring of wood, with a few lines down the middle with a marble on it the end, and a smaller ring inside the tubes. Bamboo like that you could hollow out with a chisel or kitchen knife...

I reckon it would be very easy to replicate it- provided the bamboo was available. If not, how about some kind of ductile metal tubes and a solid bit of something? The principal is sound, just mess with the materials and the lengths involved????

 

[redcollective]

This chap seems to know what he's on about:

http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/chimeart.html

 

[-Switch-]

This chap seems to know what he's on about:

http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/chimeart.html

He does doesn't he!

I wasn't expecting hertz values and nodes of fundamental frequency but it all makes sense and, although it's written for metal, it should translate to wooden pipes with a bit of luck


Cheers

 

[swyn]

I remember that a lady was taken to court by her neighbor to make her take her windchimes down This made me chuckle as I lie awake on stormy nights listening to the chimes in the trees near my house.
I love the sound of chimes and decided to make a set of my own to work on stormy nights. I am not musical but as far as I can tell they sound ok. The tube is aluminium 2 1/4" diameter and the longest is 4' (this came from a tv ariel mast that someone had put in a skip). I tried to tune them similarly and this is also a visual thing so the end result is to my eyes quite pleasing. My wife likes them too! I was very glad that they were aluminium as putting them in the tree was hard work. They are about 8' overall to the bottom of the donger which is attatched to the disc striker set within the center of the ring of chimes set in a 20" circle. It needs a good wind to drive them but to me this is fun to listen out for as the sound creeps in above that of the wind noise.
Luckily none of the neighbors have complained so after 10 or so years they are still there although some of the line will need replacing soon as it is looking a bit frayed.