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Summary: Filing the copper pipe for a xylophone is easy with these tips, get expert advice on crafting musical instruments in this free video.
Views: 276 | Tags: crafts, orchestra, xylophones, mallets, marimba
About the Expert
Benjamin Hehn Benjamin Hehn has lived most of his life in Northbridge Massachusetts near the site of a Native American Massacre. Much of his childhood was spent searching f... read more
Now, there is an aesthetic issue that I want to take care of before I start making all my cuts and preparing all my notes to place on the xylophone bar. And that is, when you buy a copper pipe from the hardware store it's going to have red lettering on it or some kind of lettering on it, on the side. It's going to talk about who made the pipe, the kind of pipe. This pipe for instance says Mueller Copper Tube and then it has a number. So, it's talking about you know different qualities about the pipe as they would use if for plumbing purposes. However, I'm making a musical instrument and for aesthetic purposes I want to take that off of the pipe. So the way I'm going to do that is I'm is I'm going to use my small metal file and I'm just going to run it up and down those letters. Because over time the marks that I make from smoothing out the pipe will kind of just disappear as the pipe ages and the copper oxidizes. However, these letters will not disappear. They'll only become more apparent over time. So I want to take those off of my xylophone. Now this takes a little time to do the whole pipe. But it's going to be worth it in the end because we're going to have a more professional product when we're finished. So I'm going to go ahead I'm going to finish doing this dirty work.