Mbiras/Kalimbas

Winter affords the carver a range of pleasures: the joy of carving by the fire on a long winter night, giving away craft during the holidays, and scoring that new tool.  But it also comes with challenges.  In the northeastern U.S., winter means substantially drier air in the workshop.  Drying times suddenly shorten, and what once took days or even weeks to settle into its final shape now snaps to form in a matter of hours.  For the bowl turner this means treating all but the thinnest work very carefully, wrapping it up in cloth or paper bags, burying it in shavings, etc...   Add to this the fact that some of us lucky souls have a wood stove or fireplace in our workshop.  I moved into a new home recently, and my new shop has a working fireplace.  I can not tell you how awesome this is.  Just sweep the shavings into the fireplace, toss a match, and viola--a clean and warm shop.  But this wonderful feature is not so wonderful when you find a batch of bowls ruined by overly hot and dry air.

If this has happened to you, and you don't know what to do with the bowls with the checked rims, you might try building a "mbira."

These African instruments are pretty easy to make.  Flatten the rim of the bowl (which lets you carve out the cracked lip where the rings were tight).  Plane a thin top (I used pine here, but I am told that the material used for the top of an instrument has a big impact on the sound quality.  Koa? Spruce? Mahogany?)  Glue a block of wood to the underside of the top and put t nuts into the block, into which you can anchor the screws that hold the aluminum rod above.  Glue the top onto the bowl, trim to shape, and bore a sound hole.  The silver bar is aluminum (easy to machine), smaller bar is brass (looks nice and matches the brass screws), and the tines are made from a sewer rod (a new one!)  You tune the instrument by pushing the tines in and out to get the right tones.  Lots of different tunings--I tuned mine to the C-scale, diatonic--good for jingle bells.