I bought a kit to make the pictured music box, and spent a fun afternoon making it.
After I put the cylinder in, I had to put the crank in and screw a plate on top. I did this, and I found I had to tighten the screws quite a lot so the crank turned the cylinder properly. Before I put the cylinder in I put a little cog on the end, and the crank has a thread which turns the cog. This is what turns the cylinder, and I think the plate above the crank needed to be tight to hold the crank down and make sure there was enough contact.
The fiddliest (if that's a word) bit was screwing on the comb. This is what makes the sound; it uses basically the same principle as a ruler on the edge of a table. There are 'pins' on the cylinder representing the notes to be played, and when the teeth on the comb hit them you get a sound. I had to line it up and get it close enough so the teeth hit the pins. It doesn't want to be too close, though, because that gives a loud, distorted, metallic sound. I also found that I had to loosen the screws because how tight they were seemed to be affecting the sound; the tighter the screws the more metallic the sound.
The surface it's on when being played makes a difference to the sound too. I think acoustic treatment (which is where this comes in) is for another blog post, because there's quite a lot to say. For now, though, I'll say fabric works well and I've found an old jewellery box (the type you buy jewellery in) still with it's cushion which seems to make the music box sound really good.
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