Electric Coconut Thumb Piano

If you are like me and every time you crack open a coconut you find the shells just too cool to throw out then this instructable is for you.   The idea of making a coconut shell thumb piano came to me one afternoon while I was trying to come up with some way to entertain my 3 and 5 year old girls.  Of course after making them each one I needed to see if I could amp one up for myself.  This was way too cool of a project not to try. As usual with all my instructables look to the image notes for the details.

In this step you will have on hand half of a coconut shell that you have already sanded flat across the opening and sanded off all the stringy bits on the outside. You will also have harvested a piezo element from a Dollar Store window alarm as well as a 1/4 inch stereo or mono jack. You will also need about 6 or 8 inches of speaker wire (or the power cable off an old AC adapter). Some wood for the top and some hot melt glue.

Here you will glue the sound board to the coconut shell. I should mention that I am using a very high quality industrial hot glue for this project. Also pick a spot on the sound board to drill about a one inch hole that will be your sound hole. Just look at the pictures to get an idea of where it should be.

Start with a couple of dowels cut to fit your sound board , you'll have to figure out how long they need to be based on the size of your coconut shell. You will also need a piece of 1/8 inch by 3/4 inch steel bar stock.  with a couple of holes drilled in the ends that will allow a screw to slide through. And of course you'll need some hot glue.

Now it is time to make the keys for your piano. I chose a 3/8 inch band saw blade that I cut into 5 pieces each about 3 inches long.