
Great collection of instructions from the ATLAS of Plucked Instruments – “The ramkie is the famous “blik kitaar” from Southern Africa; a home made guitar, using an empty oilcan for the body. The wooden neck is sometimes stuck all the way through the can; sometimes it is fixed to a wooden “lid” on the top. The 4 to 6 strings (if not of nylon) are made of unraveled bicycle brake wire. The frets are made from U-shaped pieces of wire stuck in the front of the neck. The kind of capodastre construction is usually just an upside-down bridge and can not be moved. The ramkie is mainly found in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.” [via] – Link.
I made one of these using styrofoam cups and Elmer’s Glue back in the ’70s. I put a light bulb on a cord inside it and hung it in the corner of our living room as a lamp.
Back in the late ’70s, I made one of these using styrofoam cups and Elmer’s Glue. I put a light bulb on a cord inside it, hung it in the corner of our living room and used it as a lamp.
Wouldn’t twenty faces make this form an icosahedron? Dodecahedrons have twelve pentagonal faces.
Wow. I guess all those hours playing Dungeons and Dragons weren’t wasted after all.