_{1+ 2+ 3} Boing Box

By Mark Frauenfelder

Build a fun, one-stringed instrument that packs a mighty twang.

You will need: A cigar box, 6' length of ½"×¾" wood, 8' of 20-gauge wire, 2 eye screws, wood screws, L-bracket, scraps of wood, drill, saw, screwdriver

A 1951 book called Radio and Television Sound Effects, by Robert B. Turnbull, shows how to make a “boing box.” (It’s reprinted at bizarrelabs.com/boing2.htm.) I made a modified boing box using a wooden cigar box and some scraps I had around the house.

1. Drill resonator holes in the cigar box as shown. Screw an L-bracket to the neck, then screw the neck to the cigar box. To prevent structural failure, put a ½"-thick scrap of wood under the lid and drive the screws into it. This will keep the screws from pulling out when the wire is tightened.

2. Insert eye screws into
the cigar box and the end
of the neck. Use another
wood scrap on the inside
of the box for the eye
screw. Tie and tighten
wire to both eye screws.
The wire should be tight
enough to cause the
neck to bow slightly.
(I used an eyebolt with
hex and wing nuts to
make it easy to adjust.)

3. Pluck the string and gently shake the boing box to vary the pitch. Boing!

Listen to some sample twangs of the boing box at makezine. com/12/123_boing.

Mark Frauenfelder is editor-in-chief of MAKE.

Photography by Mark Frauenfelder

116 Make: Volume 12