Making a Cajón
Cajón
A cajón is a very easy to build percussion instrument. Although making a cajón isn’t difficult I tried to make a how-to with detailed building plans and pictures.
Before explaining how to build one, something more about the cajón.
A cajón (pronounced /ka’xɔn/) (plural: Cajones; not cajons) (Spanish for ‘crate’, ‘drawer’, or ‘box’) is a kind of box drum played by slapping the front face (generally thin plywood) with the hands.
Half to three quarter inch thick wood was generally used for five sides of the box. A thin sheet of plywood was nailed on as the sixth side and acted as the striking surface or head. A sound hole was cut on the back side opposite the head or tapa.
The top edges were often left unattached and could be slapped against the box. The player sat astride the box, tilting it at an angle while striking the head between his knees. The modern cajón has several screws at the top for adjusting percussive timbre and may sport rubber feet. Some versions may also have several vertically stretched cords pressed against the tapa for a buzz like effect or tone. Guitar strings, rattles or drum snares may serve this purpose. The percussionist can play the sides with the top of his palms and fingers for additional sounds. There are also tube cajón, which are played like a conga.
You can read more about the cajón on Wikipedia.
When you search google for home made cajónes you’ll see most of them are made using plywood. Because I wanted a very cheap cajón I made it out of OSB panels.
Materials you need:
- OSB panel, 18mm thickness
- Plywood 3,6mm thickness
- Wood for the frame 27×27mm
- White glue
- Screws
- Guitar strings
Below you can see an exploded view of the cajón. The plans of this cajón can be downloaded here.
Exploded view
Cut the OSB panel into the sheets needed to build the cajón. To do this use the dimension from the plans.
OSB panel
Make the hole in the back. To do this, drill a hole in the sheet and use a jigsaw to cut out the disc.
Drawing the hole
Drill a small hole
Disc cut out with jiggsaw
Now it’s time to glue things together. To give the glue some extra support while drying you can use some nails.
Putting the pieces together
First parts glued
Complete drawer
When the drawer is finished the support for the front sheet has to be placed. I used bars from 27 by 27mm, if you can, make them smaller. But be sure they are strong enough to hold the plate and the guitar strings.
Gluing the frame
If the glue to hold the frame dried you can install the guitar strings. At first I wanted to place them in the corners but after testing there I coudn’t here the snare effect. After placing the strings between the left and the right bar of the frame you could here a nice snare sound when playing the cajón.
Fixing the strings on the frame
Strings placed between left and right bar
After screwing the front onto the cajón I rounded the corners with a router. This is the final result. The two upper corners are free from screws so the front plate has more freedom to vibrate.
Cajón
Back of the cajón
Bottom view
Download the plans of this cajon here.
Edit:
An additional detail view of the strings.
String mount detail
on Jan 17th, 2009 at 4:05 am
Hi, I am very interested in making my own Cajon, and if possible, I would like a little more detail on how you put the guitar strings on: Like how you fastened them onto the frame. I appreciate it, and great article.
on Jan 17th, 2009 at 10:45 am
To fasten the strings I just drilled the holes put the string though all the holes (I didn’t cut it in pieces) and used dowels to fixate them. This is a cheap solution and it works great…
on Jan 17th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Great, Thank you so much, I have been trying to get this question answered for a long time.
on Feb 10th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Hi Peter,
I’m a senior in high school and for my senior project, I’m building my own cajon and plan to rely heavily on the plans you have here. Iw ould like to properly credit you so I was wondering if you could divulge your last name so I could put it in the bibliography.
Thanks!
on Feb 20th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Lydia, just referring to this website would be great!
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am
so how does your build and model sound??? comparable to the decent ones found at stores? how much did it end up costing you?
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
John, the cajon sounds great, even compared to decent commercial builds. Before I made the one described in this article I made a bigger one from scrap wood, it has a warmer bass but the snare sounds like crap. It all depends on what you like.
The price of the whole project was less than €10. Certainly worth the money
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 9:30 am
What size guitar strings did you use? And how many?
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
any idea about how can i get stronger bass with this cajon?
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Phil:
I used two regular acoustic guitar strings. An E and an A string. I also didn’t cut the strings, I just passed it through each hole making sure the long and ‘free’ pieces are touching the face plate.
Flaco:
You could increase the overall size of the cajon or try to make a bigger hole in the back. Also using smaller pieces of wood to hold the face plate could help. A thinner face plate will resonate better too, but beware that it has to be strong enough so you don’t slam it into pieces the first time you play your cajon.
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
thank you Pet.i have allready baught two cajones but now i wanna make my own.thanx for the usefull tips.i promise to send you pics when it will be done and an audio sample also
on Mar 6th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Hi, great job here its the most detailed i have seen, just one question did you tention the snares/strings or was it just finger tight?
Thanks
Mark
on Mar 7th, 2009 at 12:53 am
At the beginning, when putting them through the holes, the snares were finger tight. But while putting in the dowels with a hammer, the tension gets higher. It has to be high enough to get a good snare effect.
on Mar 7th, 2009 at 10:12 am
thats great thanks, now my only issue is that here in the uk, its hard to find a flat peice of thin ply for the front. I have had two peices of 3 ply for the front and both are very warped
Thanks again
Mark
on Mar 9th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Hi again, i now have a flat peice of ply and have finished my Cajon, but i still can’t get a snare sounds or a bright sound from the top like the one you see on youtube, it sounds very dead and snares aren’t sustained like on my kit snare drum. could it bee that the strings i used are wound but different gauges! or are they still not tight enough, and help and extra pics on the snare side of thing would be a great help.
Thanks again.
Mark
on Mar 9th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
I added a detail view of the way the strings are mounted at the bottom of the post. The face plate should just touch the strings. You could also try to wrap some steel wire around the strings. Or just let the strings go though a spring of a ballpoint to increase the snare effect. Make sure the dowels are deep enough in the holes so they do not touch the face plate as it would ruin the sound.
on Mar 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
thanks again, mine still doesn’t sounds that ringy at the top of the box, but i think the frame is made of wood that is too think, 1.1/4 diameter ?
Cheers for all your help Peter!
Mark
on Apr 27th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Hey,
I’m planning on building one but I just want to make sure if this is the kind of box drum you sit on or am I confusing this type with another
on Jun 7th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Hi Peter,
Very nice simple design. I recently attempted to build one of these for a friend - concentrating mainly on the look/woodworking. It ended up looking quite good, but the sound is lacking. I went with slightly larger dimensions than I found on the web - resulting in a nice bass but issues with the “sizzle” sound.
I’m curious if your faceplate is removable or not? I spent a lot of
time trying various ways of building one so that the face plate
could be removed w/o damaging the box. I wanted to be able
to swap string/snare assemblies.
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Hey, this is a great post. I just wanted to know in a little bit more detail about the strings you use and how you arranged them in the Cajon itself. Thanks
on Nov 15th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Great stuff…just curious if you have made Cajones out of different types of wood and if so did you find one type produces a better sound than others? Thanks for the info.
on Nov 15th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
The first one I made was out of veneered chipboard. It is a lot larger than the one from this article and has a very deep bass.
Beside that one and the one made from OSB, described in this article, I have not tried other materials.
I think plywood would be the best but not the cheapest choice.
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Curious what your opinion would be on actual hardwoods. Would this be a waste of time in your opinion?
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 4:51 am
I was thinking of producing some for my website http://theravenest.com. The Raven’s Nest. I just am not sure if its worth the trouble
on Dec 9th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Well I thank you for the post, but I have decided to go with selling the Cajon on my site http://TheRAVENest.com. I will be producing some high end hardwood style, but the plywood style seems to be a hit among the players within my area. These are created with a ply body and face instead of OSB or particle board. I should have some up on my site within the next month for anyone interested in seeing them. I have included some internal acoustical changes so I will be including a sound bmp or video as well. Thank you for the post again and have fun playing!
on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:45 am
Hi, I just found this site after building my first cajon. Great plans. And I like seeing someone else trying to make a lower cost cajon.
Here’s some thoughts from my build:
I used particle board shelving 5/8 x 12 inches. I built the box and attached the front yesterday and then rounded all of the corners today.
I’ve been experimenting with tuning. I used a 2.25 inch hole saw and made three holes in the back originally. After some playing time I wanted to see if I could get the bass deeper. I located an online helmholtz resonator calculator and saw that my box was tuned to around 87 hz.
After some trial and error with the calculator I decided to close one of the holes and make the other two deeper. So I added another thickness of wood in the area of the holes and only cut through it in two of the holes. According to the calculator it should be tuned to around 68 hz now, and it definitely sounds much deeper.
I think the way to think of the hole size is: bigger = louder sound; smaller = deeper bass.
For the snare I just picked up a snare strainer from a local music store for $11. I cut it in half and mounted it at the top on a 45 degree angle. At first the snare wasn’t very pronounced, but I’ve trimmed it to where it is just barely touching the front panel and now it sounds great.
Oh, and I used 1/4″ birch ply for the front.
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
a different way of making your own cajon is too use small pieces of bamboo or just a bunch of wooden rods they should be a little more than a quarter of the length of your cajon and about the size of a instide of a bic pen(the part that hold the ink), basically you run them up and down which would be perpendicular from the bottom and top of your cajon. So you take your bamboo or wood sticks and line them up all nice on the inside of the front side, after you have them lined you want to glue them at the bottom of the sticks(the side closest to the ground)leave the top unglued so the bamboo has room to reverberate then you take a piece of wood that will connect to the front (basically this piece of wood is used to hold the bamboo in place it is placed parrallel to the floor a little less than half of the way up the bamboo sticks connect that piece to the frame you made that fits the front (where most directions tell you to connect the guitar strings). Another thing to keep in mind is that the front top of your cajon should have some play in it basically you should have screws that can adjust the front to get the snare sound. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND LOOKING?PLAYING A CAJON AT YOUR LOCAL MUSIC STORE (hopefully you are lucky enough to have a store that carries a cajon or two) Basically i built my first cajon following the instructions above plus a little extra except i used snare wires instead of guitar strings, then i had the pleasure of playing a cajon in dales drums and i examined the build of the ones there. Building my next cajon i had a much better design and got much better results. if you would like more exact instructions let me know i would be happy to help.
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Nate, thanks for your message!
The design in this article is very basic indeed and could use some improvements. It would be great if you could write the detailed instructions in an article. You can do so by registering here: http://www.techible.net/contribute/ (or use the contribute link on top of the site).
If you don’t feel like registering and writing the article yourself you can send me the instructions and I’ll build my own Cajon based on your design (peter@techible.net). All credits to you ofcourse…
on May 31st, 2010 at 5:35 pm
[...] een goedklinkende cajón maken? Bekijk deze website voor de (Engelstalige) [...]
on Jun 23rd, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for posting this. Think I’ll give it a go. After several years of wanting to get my hands on one of these, i finally had a go on one last weekend at a busking festival. Talk about a drum kit in a box. With a basic cajon costing at least £50, it seems a shame not to have a go at making one.
on Jul 31st, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Gave a go at this the last couple days…made two of them. The first is about 1 and a half times the size of the one in this plan. (I had some left over wood from another project that was already cut and more or less just had to do the gluing.)
The second is as to plan here.
For the “drum head” I used some paneling that was also left over which is really pretty inexpensive stuff and seems to be working quite well. For the box I used the same material as in the plan above.
Couple of lessons learned:
For the internal frame that holds the guitar strings I only ran the side (vertical) boards…didn’t bother framing top and bottom as I wanted to maximize vibration space for the drum head.
I used a pine 1X2 (soft wood) in the first drum but I used some left over hard wood flooring cut down to size in the second. The strings definitely sound better against the hard wood…less sound dampening.
Also on the second drum I used a pair of needle nose pliers to crank more tension on the strings before pining them in the hole.
This REALLY crisped up the snare sound.
( as is hinted at above you want to run you snare wires across the face of the drum…as in the picture looking through the hole…not just in the corners…as in the illustrated detail)
In addition to all that…I forgot to pick up a wood dowel to pin the strings…was halfway home from the store when I realized it. My solution was to drill a small enough hole that I was able to use a golf tee to lock the strings in the sound board!
If you’re thinking of trying to build one of these you really can’t go wrong with this plan!
on Aug 3rd, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I’m in the process of making a cajon, and I added Guitar knobs. I thought it would be a nice touch to be able to tighten and losen the strings. And I had a qustion, do the strings need to be in the corners of the tapa?
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 11:38 am
can you put a video on youtube with the sound of your cajon
on Sep 16th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I seen the comment where you said you fixed the strings with dowels, but exactly how did you do it?
on Sep 16th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Kamaka,
You can see how this is done on this picture: http://www.techible.net/wp-content/uploads/hpim2727-300×225.jpg (picture is also in the article).
The holes are drilled making sure the dowels fit tightly. Put the string in the hole before inserting the dowel. Use a (light) hammer to get the dowel deep enough so it’s below the surface and doesn’t touch the face plate.
The tension of the strings raises while fixing the dowels. You can use some glue to keep everything in place.
on Sep 23rd, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I have seen plans where the sound hole is cut at the bottom of the rear panel as opposed to the top. In your opinion, would this have any marked effect on the sound and, if so, what?
Do you think that sealing the interior of the box with quality boat lacquer would have any effect on the sound. I made a Cajon today using offcuts of light 12mm ply for the sides, top and bottom and finished the interior with boat lacquer in the hope that this would compensate for the less dense material. I am eager to hear the result tomorrow when the paint dries.
I also experimented with using bamboo BBQ sticks as a reader suggested so, all in all , tomorrow should be interesting.
on Dec 1st, 2010 at 12:01 pm
how’ya peter, iam just wondering about the guitar strings are they threaded through and left slack and dose the tapa board sit right up against the strings.
on Feb 1st, 2011 at 11:46 am
On the subject of strings, Fixing them is’nt the problem, it,s buying four bottom E or A (wound) strings all the same size. Thinner strings are available in same size multi-packs, but thicker ones are not. As the strings are only for a snare effect they don’t need to be top quality which only makes the search more difficult. Any information welcome. Thanks.
on Feb 15th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Martyn,
I’m in the process of building a Cajon with my son (who’s the drummer in the house) and I have 2 ideas for the snare.
First, don’t buy guitar strings. Any friend, neighbor etc that plays guitar will have old strings laying around. I usually keep a couple old-sets in my guitar case so that I don’t have to open a new pack if I break a string. Ask some friends, I’m sure they’ll have some.
Second option (which I might try) is to purchase a replacement snare. Guitar center has them for <$7 in different sizes.
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Gibraltar-SC-360A-13–Drum-Snare-446031-i1139036.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Gibraltar-20-Strand-Strainer-for-14—Snare-101182962-i1139108.gc
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Gibraltar-4467L-Snare-Drum-Wire-446251-i1139147.gc
I’m thinking I might try this solution.
on Apr 7th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Can You upload youtube video or any demo of a sound of your cajon?
on Jun 4th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Does anybody know whether the sound is better using the snare strings or guitar strings? Also how would you build it differently if you were using snare strings as opposed to guitar strings?
on Oct 21st, 2011 at 3:31 am
Is the face glued or just screwed on and is 1/4″ birch plywood ok for the face??