Should anyone be interested, I did some more work on the Cajon, which is
now temporarily finished.

Cajons come in at least two major varieties: with snare and without. The
"snare" variety has either snare-drum snares or some guitar strings
stretched across the back of the striking surface to add a
"snare-drum'-like quality to the higher-pitched sound you get by
striking near the edge.

I made my Cajon with a set of snares that you can turn on or off. They
were mounted on a rod that can be turned so as to have the snares
contact the striking surface or not.

https://flic.kr/p/SSaL2y

(photo is shown with the striking surface - a piece of 1/8" plywood -
removed)

I got the idea for the switchable snare from a Woodworking for Mere
Mortals video and used his placement of the rod. But there was a
problem. The angle of the snares to the striking surface was too great,
the snares only touched near their tips and didn't produce much sound.

I took a look at a couple of commercially-made cajons and saw that the
snares - like on a snare drum - were essentially laying lightly on the
back of the striking surface.

I didn't want to move the rod at this stage; I'd have had to fill in the
holes that hold it in place. Instead, I made a couple of "brackets" that
attach to the rod and hold a narrow piece of 1/2" ply that in turn holds
the snares.

https://flic.kr/p/TWZpCB
https://flic.kr/p/TyBArq

This now works pretty well. The snares, when "engaged" are nearly
parallel to the striking surface, and they produce the desired sound. In
addition, the sound can be adjusted a little bit my rotating the knob to
vary the "pressure" on the snares. Here's a poor photo inside the cajon:

https://flic.kr/p/U9xV56

In the "disengaged" position the snares "jingle" softly from the
vibration of the box. I intend to install a piece of foam
weatherstripping for the snares to rest against when they are not in
use. That will probably wait until I decide on another experiment or two
that I might try to alter the sound.


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