Wind chimes are easier to make than you might think. I've included a parts list below:
- 3/4" steel EMT conduit
- pipe cutter
- drill with a 1/8" drill bit
- measuring tape
- heat shrink tubing
- twine, or some kind of fishing line/rope/string
- eyelet screws
- two pieces of wooden discs, one smaller than the other
- material for the wind sail.. could be plastic, wood, glass, etc.
- weatherproof wood stain
The first step was to decide what notes I wanted the pipes to be. Once the notes were decided, I cut the pipe to the prescriped lengths, based on this handy chart from Lee Hite's website. These are the final lenghts I chose, with the corresponding height of the drill hole from the top of the chime. After cutting the pipe, I marked each drill hole with a sharpie and used a 1/8" bit to drill each hole.
- C#: 14 3/16", 3 3/16"
- D#: 13 3/8", 3"
- F#: 12 1/4", 2 3/4"
- G#: 11 9/16", 2 9/16"
- A#: 10 15/16", 2 7/16"
The next step was to decide on the position of the eyelt screws on the top disc, where the chimes would be ctrung from. This was the most difficult part for me. I ended up cutting down the chimes three separate times to work on the position of the screws. The radius of the circle where the screws are placed should be at least half an inch wider than the disc that you will be using as the striker, but preferably larger if your top disc can accomodate it.
The screws need to be evenly spaced around the circle. The length (NOT the arc length, just if I drew a line between two screws) between my screws was about 3 inches even. There need to be five of them on the top disc, with an additional one placed in the center. Finding the center of the discs was also a bit trickier than I initially thought it would be. I ended up just drawing a bunch of straight lines across the widest points of the disc to find where they intersect. You'll also need a screw in the middle of the top side of the top disc, as well as one on the top and bottom of the striker, and one on the top of the wind sail.
I hung the chimes in a 1-3-5-2-4 order, with the first chime being the shortest one. I found it easiest to hang the first one, then hang one across from it so that the top disc wouldn't get weighed down too much on one side. If you like, you can use heat shrink tubing here to prevent the twine from snapping. I did not end up using the tubing, and so we will see how well the chimes hold up.