Woodblock

An auxiliary instrument

Back when I was playing music in a band, we were working on writing some new songs. It occurred to me that our drummer could potentially make good use of a woodblock as part of the kit.

After doing a bit of research, I didn't have much info to go on. Having some experience with percussion instruments in the past, I was aware of a couple approaches I could take, and of a couple principles to keep in mind. But I was really just winging this one and hoping for the best.

Our drummer in the band was a pretty heavy hitter, so I wanted to make something he could have fun with and also not destroy. I started out with a piece of Red Oak I figured would work fine for the body. It's probably a pretty poor "tone wood" (woods that are considered to have good tone-producing qualities), but this was just going to be the underside, and not the main resonating component.

For the top, I found a nice piece of Black Cherry. For the striking area (the front top edge), I wanted to reinforce it for strength, and also to create a crisper and more obvious striking area, so I just added a Black Cherry rounded bead there. The angle on the front was mostly for aesthetics. I'm not sure what affect it might have on the sound compared to a straight front.

The tricky part was the mounting. These get mounted on metal rods clamped to other components of the drum kit (or percussion kit). Here's a straight rod clamped on the rim of my floor tom. This is what the woodblock will mount on.

So, I had a bit of figuring to do so the woodblock would have a mechanism for clamping onto one of these rods. The long story short is this: I drilled a hole that could slip over a rod, then used a threaded insert that could tighten a thumb screw onto the rod. The rest of it is mostly aesthetic, but I didn't want the entire back of the woodblock to be 1" thick, hence the added curvy part.

Here it is mounted on the kit.

Our drummer said it took a pretty solid hit to get a good sound, but it did sound pretty good once he discovered that. It's not a sensitive woodblock, but I think I knew that when I was making it.

The band disappeared, but I still have the woodblock, so let me know if you want to get together and...play the woodblock.