Making a Music Box: A 5 Year Anniversary Present

This is a little music box I made for my wife as a gift for our 5 year wedding anniversary. We agreed not to get each other gifts but I had to make an exception for the "wood" anniversary! The wood comes from the old floors of our wedding venue and is dade county pine, or slash pine, which is very rare these days. The hinges and knob come from Horton Brasses.
Here are products I like to use often in the shop. These are affiliate links. Purchasing through these links helps support the parillaworks channel. Thanks!
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Website: www.parillawork...
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[@AwesomePowerCat]

Using the wood from the wedding venue is so sweet. I love that!

[@alexclark6777]

I love handmade keepsake items like these - you must really be in love with her to dismantle a walnut box in order to make a memory!

[@parillaworks]

Lol thanks Alex! I was not expecting the box to be actually walnut, thought it would be a crappy veneered contraption honestly.

[@calinguga]

@@parillaworks lol

[@19sman74]

So romantic!

[@whitexeno]

Paying customers: expensive Sapele wife: salvaged pine floors for free. JK nice work on the box.

[@parillaworks]

Lol this pine is priceless!

[@andrewbrown8148]

Very nice, John~! So cool that you were able to get the wooden floorboard from the venue where you were married. Great sentimental connection~!

[@MasonR3]

That little jingle is so beautiful I love it so much

[@justinnaramor6050]

Warning: this comment might get a little long :)) I've been listening to a lot of music-box-related KZbin videos today and just now found this one. This was really nice to listen to, and what a great little gift for your wife! One interesting little observation I made: During the playing of the song on the music box, I could hear that some of the notes of the melody were duplicated. This is actually a good thing: the sound of a music box is produced by pegs on a rotating cylinder thing which pluck little strips of metal to allow them to vibrate (similar to the strings of a guitar or something). If the melody for the instrument is programmed in such a way that the same strip is triggered several times in a row (which means the same note is repeated), what you hear is a very noticeable "dampening" effect on the sound. That's because the little peg on the rotating cylinder thing has to first touch the strip of metal and then finally slip off the strip to cause it to vibrate, and when that strip is touched by a peg it stops the strip from vibrating; this is akin to a musician's finger plucking a guitar string. So, to get rid of the dampening effect and thus create more of a "sustaining" sound, some of those metal strips can be tuned to the same pitch. This means that if 2 different strips play the same pitch back to back and the contact of a peg with one of those strips stopps it from vibrating, the other strip playing the same pitch is still vibrating and therefore it sounds more sustained... hope that makes sense. So, talking about the "Make You Feel My Love" song: if you analyze the melody closely (particularly at the chorus, which the music box was playing), you can hear something like 5 instances of the same pitch, one immediately following the other. So whoever made the mechanism shown here was smart to have some of the metal strips tuned to that same pitch to accommodate for this fact. Those 2 or so strips may not've been "absolutely" tuned to "precisely" the same pitch though, as there was a very, very slight "chorus" effect when those 2 or so strips were played, so I think that makes my point even more obvious :)). All this stuff is really quite interesting to me. I have a bit of a fascination with music boxes and sound, as you can probably tell :))))) I also have a pretty good ear for music, so I think that also helps when making an analysis like this. Anyways, feel free to reply if you'd like to (or if you don't, that's fine too, I won't force you to do so and I won't get offended either :))))))))))

[@belladonoflio4792]

I found your comment VERY interesting and didn’t even notice that myself until I’d read this and listened back! Good observation!

[@zyxo1848]

Awesome comment, thank you for sharing this information. That’s brilliant

[@justinnaramor6050]

@@zyxo1848 Well thanks. Making observations like this is actually very useful. It just helps you appreciate music that much more. I'm not one to listen to music only to treat it as background noise or something; I want to actually analyze what's going on and really appreciate the music and get engaged. A bit surprised my comment got 22 likes! Obviously someone put in the time to read it, considering it was a bit long. Other people I've written longer comments to just flat-out got offended or disgusted at how long my comment was... these are people who demand that KZbin comments should somehow be short and sweet and not written like an "essay". Lol! Well, sorry, but some ideas/concepts simply require lengthy explanations in order to have them be fully understood... not everything can just be hastily slapped together in a few short sentences! :))

[@dimitriostheodorides1580]

Awesome brother ❤❤ the only thing I'll say and it's not a criticism. As a musician I can't help but wish the box was deeper so the acoustics would ring the notes out with a natural reverb effect. That's all and totally a preference 🎉. Super awesome and thanks for the tip!!!!

[@SteveC38]

What a Beautiful Gift!

[@asalingmerth1441]

You’re a good man. So sweet of you

[@Numocron]

Wow man this is such a lovely gift you've made for your wife I love it.😃👍❤️😍🥰🎶🎵

[@rolandgdean]

KZbin is utterly broken. Took over two months to be alerted to this video's existence. I've been waiting forever for you to make a box again and I missed it. Anyway, great build and another awesome video John.

[@parillaworks]

Thanks Roland! Ya it seems the algorithm can be hit or Miss these days.

[@joshuaglassman7558]

Holy crap is that the cutest speed square I've ever seen! :-P

[@dacueba-games]

5:03 did anyone else instantly think it was gonna play the Luigi's Mansion theme

[@MCsCreations]

Beautiful work, John! It turned out fantastic! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@icemen63]

Как всегда все превосходно! Молодец!👍👏

[@julietphillips1991]

Very special and thoughtful of you!

[@briangmurray6367]

Awesome present for your wife.

[@viorsa8200]

Excelente proyecto muy bien desarrollado y mejor ejecutado , una caja de música magnífica , gracias por compartir , un saludo cordial y por supuesto un gran like desde Narón , Galicia ( España) 🤓😜

[@jovam.275]

Yeahhhh not what I was expecting lol I’m like where is the part where he MAKES one not just cut wood ? 🤪 🤣🤣

[@elliadzn4804]

thats really a nice project i was thinking to make a box as well but it will be with something i can use not a box only but thank you for sharing it with us

[@bertamaral6617]

very romantic!

[@djamelhamdia134]

John is the best!

[@ga5743]

Aww what a romantic..

[@timmymartin317]

Well done Sir.

[@hoists1829]

John,I love it,you may need a wireless electric hoist to help you.

[@imaginarypepe8490]

Very nice

[@matthewnevins2582]

Rubber non-stop drawer liners/mats would help to keep the pieces from sliding while sanding

[@parillaworks]

Good call!

[@Shaunicus.]

Thats the most romantic thing I've ever seen!

[@coleve8596]

I think I would have robbed the feet off the other one as well. Great video.

[@YooProjects]

Great job bro 🙏

[@CMack19]

Great minds think alike. I'm getting a music box for my wife, but I thought it would be better if I made the box myself. So to KZbin I went and your video I saw.

[@woodsniffer]

very clever, can you share the link on the music mechanism I cannot find it on web.

[@jessicag630]

I'm just a little confused. Why didn't you present it in the original box instead of just moving the mechanism out of the old one into the new box?

[@dealtanace]

prolly because the new box is their wedding venues flooring, so its a lot more sentimental

[@slothchannel8652]

Where do you buy the music mechanism in the box

[@michaelwagner3952]

Cool project. I wanted to do a simile project for an anniversary a couple years back and hit a similar snag. There’s tons of cheap music pieces ($10?) available with poor quality and then quite a few luxury pieces with higher quality for hundreds of dollars. Where did you source this one? Or brand?

[@parillaworks]

Thanks Michael. The music box is from One Tiny Shop. It was the only place I could find the song I needed. It was about $140. Wish it would’ve been cheaper but it’s pretty high quality and included a nice walnut box. The alternative was a custom mechanism which would’ve been many more hundreds if not into the $1200 range.

[@AntiMidian]

how to make a box. not a music box.

[@viralstore491]

Please make a music box of until I make u mine and also provide us option of buying 🥺

[@heyitsthatdude17]

Great video! 4:35 how do you deal with this issue (too deep mortises) if it arises? Plane/sand down the edges again to raise the hinge out of the mortise?

[@parillaworks]

Thanks! Ya, usually I’ll take a few passes with a block plane and see where that leaves me. It’s best to sneak up on it. More sanding like I did earlier would’ve worked, but been a bit slower.

[@AndreChaosweapon]

Nice box and present, but the music was muted intentionally?

[@parillaworks]

Thanks! Not sure what you mean about the music being muted?

[@AndreChaosweapon]

@@parillaworks i hear the ambient sound but no sound from the music box

[@quaide78]

Where did you get the music box with the custom song that was dismantled at? Thanks!

[@parillaworks]

Onetinyshop.com. It wasn’t a custom song though, they luckily had Adele’s version of that song available.

[@quaide78]

@@parillaworks Sweet! Thanks.

[@brandonl9781]

That song is written by Bob Dylan

[@parillaworks]

Yup. We happened to choose Adele’s cover for our wedding.

[@kmzeshan]

How can add ur own music

[@TheTranq]

How do you like that Incra box joint jig? I’m considering getting it

[@parillaworks]

It’s a great jig. I’ve had it for 5 years or so and use it every now and again when needed. It’s easy to adjust to match your dado stack and you can make incremental adjustments.

[@TheTranq]

@@parillaworks cool I think I’ll get it, I wasn’t impressed with the Rockler version

[@logipapu3733]

We order this?

[@Julie_Krantz]

Can you please tell me where you bought the mechanism that plays the music?

[@zamid]

Хочу купить

[@victhebric66]

Mmm. A little misleading to be honest. I was expecting you to make the actual mechanism itself, not just the box.

[@tomj6650]

Nice work. A cautionary tale, however. 39 years ago I lost my middle finger and severely cut my index, third, and pinkie fingers on a table saw. A moment’s inattention changed my life, as a 10” carbide tipped blade running at 3400 rpm didn’t distinguish between wood and flesh. Watching you work without guards with your hands so close to the blade makes me cringe. For your sake and that of your family, please pause and rethink your woodworking safety protocols. I thought I was safe. I’ll spare you the photos. Tom