hey guys I’m Nate welcome back to the
workshop in the past we’ve done a few
different experiments using clay
including making our own clay that we
found on the side of the riverbank and a
couple of tests of hiring clay in a
barbecue today we’re gonna try and build
something specific out of play and see
if we can get it to work for this
project I do have some commercially
available ceramic clay instead of using
the river clay the reason I’m doing that
is I might want to try firing the
project we do today and I want to make
sure that I’m using some clay that has
the proper mixture of grog or other
additives to make sure that it fires
correctly without cracking too much our
River clay can fire but so far it’s got
some serious problems with cracking and
I haven’t quite nailed down the formula
of what to do to stop that from
happening there’s plenty of places where
you can buy ceramic clay commercially a
lot of hobby stores carry or I got this
25 pound block on Amazon where
surprisingly cheap we’ll put a link down
in the description if you prefer to do
that the goal is to take this clay in to
shape it into a functional musical
instrument we’re going to try to make a
clay ocarina all we’re going to need is
a handful size ball of clay a little bit
of water and a few popsicle sticks this
is a water-based clay so it can dry out
so I’m just gonna break off the piece
that I need and then seal the plastic
bag so the rest of it doesn’t go bad
there we go this ball slightly smaller
than my fist is probably more than
enough so we’ll just set that aside
close up the rest this play sort of just
trying to squeeze extra air out of the
bag now that we have our clay I want to
prep our popsicle sticks to shape them
just a little bit into more useful tools
the shaping on these sticks is going to
be very basic and quick I want a flat
edge on one end of the popsicle stick so
let’s cut it to the shape we need now
let’s just take a little bit of
sandpaper smooth that cut down and taper
it on one side so it’s sloped you can
now see that the front of this popsicle
stick sort of slopes down into a chisel
shape that’ll make it easier to get some
of the details we need in our clay
let’s do the same thing to the other
three popsicle sticks you might only
need two of these but I like to have a
couple of backups
before we start sculpting the clay into
the shape of our ocarina let’s spend a
couple minutes just throwing it down on
the table this will help force out any
air bubbles that could cause problems
when you fire it there we go our clay is
pretty well wedged I think meaning most
of the air bubbles have been forced out
of it and that’s what we want that means
it’s a lot less likely to burst when we
put it in the kiln so now let’s start by
breaking our clay up into three pieces
one smaller piece which we’ll set aside
for a moment smaller than a golf ball
bigger than a marble penny in between
those two now we want to take the rest
of our little play ball and divide it in
half doesn’t need to be perfectly in
half just mostly in half will work
pretty well now what we need to do is
form our clay into the shape of the body
of an ocarina I am going to try to get a
sort of teardrop shape for my ocarina
and see if we can get that to work just
start by rolling it at a little bit of a
taper that’s gonna give us narrow end
and a wide end then just can use my
thumb and pinch this out so we have sort
of a long teardrop shaped dish and go
that looks pretty good just flip it up
head down and press it down a little bit
so our edges are all meeting the table
that means you’re gonna have one flat
plane surface now that we’ve got our
first half made let’s make another one
just like it
[Music]
that’s a pretty good nice hollow shape
let’s do the same thing flip it upside
down and make sure that the edge is
coming all the way down to the table all
the way around it now this is looking
pretty good but I think I actually want
to spread it out and make it a little
bit flatter and wider so I’m gonna try
doing that sort of widen it up a little
bit on both of them there we go if we
can just visualize putting those two
together I think we’re starting to see a
pretty decent ocarina shape now we have
our two halves I’m just gonna smooth
them out a little bit it’ll probably end
up getting a little bit messed up later
as we’re adding on other parts and
making it all work
but just for the heck of it let’s smooth
down the outside a little bit there we
go we’ve got our two halves and now what
we need to do is put them together and
get them to stay connected really well
one thing that really helps with this is
if we score the two sides of clay I’m
just gonna take the back of this knife
make some scratch marks all along the
outside Ridge here now I’m going to add
just a little bit of water going all the
way around one side now let’s press the
two sides together add just a little bit
of pressure we really want them to stick
pretty well sometimes you can even see a
little bit of water starting to ooze out
it’s a good sign now I’m just going to
use my fingers and thumbs try and smear
the clay down over the seam so we have a
nice permanent bond now this sort of
teardrop or almond shaped piece of clay
is full of air the whole thing’s Hollow
would probably float if we put it on
water right now but it’s a water-based
clay and that could sort of make it
dissolve a little bit so I’m not gonna
do that but this is where we’re trying
to get to we now have a hollow piece of
clay shaped somewhat like a teardrop or
almond moving on to the next stage we’re
gonna grab our little piece of clay that
we set aside and one of our popsicle
stick tools let’s form the piece of clay
into a sort of flattened cylinder so
first I’m just going to roll it that’s
longer than we need
press it down pull it again there we go
this is just a little bit over an inch
long you can see it’s a good sized
little cylinder now I’m just going to
take a couple of fingers and smush it
down a little bit flat not all the way
it’s somewhat flat so what we’re going
to do is this is going to be our
mouthpiece which attaches to our ocarina
about right here the side of our ocarina
is sloped so let’s take a knife and cut
our mouthpiece at a similar angle so
that will fit nicely on to the side
there we go we can see that’s a much
better matchup than when it was just the
square end now before we attach it we
want to take our popsicle stick get it
wet in our cup of water and then we want
to run the popsicle stick through the
length of this piece of clay that’s
going to be our mouthpiece there we go
we have that popsicle stick going in one
side traveling all the way through the
mouthpiece and sticking out about an
inch on the other side now holding onto
the popsicle stick not the mouthpiece
itself we’re going to push the popsicle
stick through the side wall of the body
of the ocarina
once you actually punched through the
clay wall sort of has a lot more give to
it and we don’t want our mouthpiece
sticking straight out from the side we
want it kind of angled down this way the
popsicle stick inside the mouthpiece is
angled so that it lines up approximately
with the roof of our ocarina we have
that hole now I’m just going to do the
same scoring on this clay that I did
when I put the other pieces together
[Music]
water there we go now we’re gonna press
this back on I’m gonna try and press our
mouthpiece into the clay we want to get
it to bond but of course we don’t want
to push it so hard that it collapses the
body of the ocarina at this point what
we have is a hollow body that will be in
the sound chamber for our ocarina and a
tube coming off of it and that’s where
we’re gonna blow the air into the
instrument just to check I’m gonna see
if we can still slide this popsicle
stick in and out because we don’t want
it to grip too hard on to the size of
the clay you can see that as the
popsicle stick has absorbed water it
started getting more of the clay stuck
to it I’m just gonna scrape that off now
I’ll dip the stick in our water again
and I’m gonna put it back into the
mouthpiece in ocarina just the same way
it was before we now want to take a
second popsicle stick and use it to
start carving out a hole for the music
will be played so let’s get that
popsicle stick wet the same way we did
it the first one and now we need to
start using it to cut into our clay just
barely after where the mouthpiece meets
the body of the clay we want to cut down
into the clay lined up with where our
first popsicle stick is you can see if
the edges of this popsicle stick were
visible it’d be about right here and
here so I’m gonna take this popsicle
stick and cut down into the clay and try
and hit the first popsicle stick and go
this should cut through the clay fairly
easily and then of course it stops when
it hits the popsicle stick so we now
have a little slot going down in there
this is tapered so it’s just hitting in
one point you can’t see either popsicle
stick down in that hole yet what we want
to do is about the same width of our
popsicle stick we then want to cut
another slot that goes down and hits the
first possible stick
in fact we can go on all four sides we
just want a square piece here that’s
kind of cut out now I’m going to use
this popsicle stick and just sort of
scoop out the piece of clay that we’ve
just cut at this point you can see a
little bit of the popsicle stick that’s
running through the mouthpiece into the
body let’s just try and carve away the
clay down in there until we can see a
nice square piece of popsicle stick now
we’ve got the body we’ve got the
mouthpiece and we have a hole that leads
down into the popsicle stick which is a
channel from one to the other at this
point let’s take one of our popsicle
stick tools and try and add a 45-degree
slope from the top of the ocarina down
to the point where this hole meets the
popsicle stick this side of the clay
meets the popsicle stick right here at
the back of our square hole and that’s
where we want the base of our slope to
be so we’re going to slope from this
point back to about right here start
taking a little bit of clay off at a
tone
[Music]
we can now see the clay running from the
top of the ocarina sloping down at about
a 45 degree angle to where it runs into
this popsicle stick now let’s try to
gently slide the first popsicle stick
out of the ocarina body and mouthpiece
one thing we want to do is verify that
the very edge at the bottom of our slope
is nice and straight you can see that as
I pulled the popsicle stick out it got a
little bit wavy so I’m just gonna use
the tools and see if I can straighten
that out a little bit oh that’s not
perfect but it’s a fairly straight edge
I’m down here at the bottom there’s this
shelving plate and one thing we want to
make sure is that it sticks farther into
the ocarina body than this piece of clay
on the top at this point if everything
has been done correctly we should be
able to blow into it and get a musical
tone hey we got it to work beautiful
I’ll let you know
this one actually worked on the first
try which is I think the first time I’ve
ever had this succeed the first time I
did it this setup is very finicky and
fiddly and a lot of the time you’re
going to need to tinker with it and toy
with it a lot before you really get a
nice tone if you blow into it and you
just get a sound then you’re just going
to need to keep playing with it and make
sure you have every different point
lined up just the way it needs to be
sounds kind of like a train whistle
not bad ceramic clay is non-toxic if you
actually eat any of the clay it might
plug up your digestive tract a little
bit and that’s not gonna be comfortable
so you don’t want to eat your clay but
if it gets on your mouth a little bit
it’s not something you have to worry
about this actually works fairly well so
let’s do a little bit of cosmetic
clean-up to make it look nicer on the
outside
[Music]
at this point our ocarina is functioning
but it only plays one note so it’s
really kind of more of a whistle than an
ocarina what we need to do is add some
finger holes that will let us change the
tones I’ll admit I’m actually not an
expert on where how many what size of
holes should be put into an ocarina to
really get the best variety of notes so
I’m just gonna take a drill bit start
carefully adding some holes to it and
see if they’ll help me change the tone
at all trying to sort of figure out
where I’d put my fingers and I’m just
gonna try putting holes in that spot
well here’s one right here let’s see
what happens if a drill a nice little
hole right here well the first hole
works let’s see if we can add a second
one I’m gonna try putting this hole over
where this finger should go
[Music]
it’s a different tone but it’s only a
very slight change I wonder if I need to
make that hole a little bit bigger to
get the higher pitch that I’m looking
for it’s definitely higher it’s not
beautiful it plays and it makes
different notes which are definitely
important features as you can hear it’s
not like the nicest richest tone and I
think part of that is that even though
I’ve been using a drill bit some little
bits of clay are now sticking down into
the body of the ocarina and that doesn’t
help with the sound really flowing
through it very nicely I’m gonna see if
I can take my exacto knife I’m gonna try
and cut a hole into the body of the
ocarina and smooth out the surface where
I drilled the sound holes all right I
think I managed to smooth down the area
around the holes a little bit now let’s
use this same piece of clay and plug up
the hole that we cut all right let’s see
if it still plays after we cut the
bottom off yeah I think that’s pretty
good I think that really did help bring
out the tone again doesn’t quite work
for the Zelda songs that’s the best it
sounded yet well I think if I keep
adding holes to it I might ruin it
like I said I’m not a professional
ocarina maker this is just sort of a fun
toy instrument that you can make at home
just using some clay and I’m pretty
happy with how this one has turned out
it’s got a good shape to it I’ve got
four different tones I might even try
adding a few more holes once it’s dried
out more when the clay is more dry I
should be able to drill into it without
pushing it out the bottom it will act
more like a particulate which the drill
bit should be able to get out
easily if you’re trying to make your own
ocarina and you’re having problems
getting it to produce a tone I’ve made a
little diagram that might help you
troubleshoot what the problem is this
whole image is a cross-section of the
ocarina if we were to take a very sharp
knife and cut it from this point all the
way back through this is what we would
see if we looked at it on the side so
this right here is the mouthpiece this
right here is the 45-degree slope that
we have in our ocarina this is the
inside of the chamber a couple of things
we need to look out for this distance
right here is approximately the same as
the width of your popsicle stick this
will give us a nice square shape looking
down into the hole we have made in the
ocarina the bottom piece of clay should
extend out farther than the top piece of
clay you should be able to look down
into the ocarina and see this little lip
of clay sticking out farther than this
bit another common problem is for this
edge to be the wrong shape it needs to
be a nice clean line and approximately a
45 degree angle there are two important
things going on with this point of the
clay as well the first is that this
point needs to be in between the top of
our air channel and the bottom of our
air channel I found I have a little bit
more success if it’s slightly above the
middle but it should be lower than the
height of the top of our air channel the
other point to look out for is that the
air needs to be traveling into the
ocarina split on this 45 degree angle
and then be traveling right along the
roof of the ocarina where it will swirl
around in the side what we can’t have is
for the air to go in and then have a
large cavity that goes up we don’t want
this 45 degree angle to be pointing down
into the cavity so this is what we don’t
want we don’t want our air to come in
hit the angle of the clay and then have
to go up and around you can see here
that it travels in and can go right into
a smooth swirling motion here when it
goes in and gets split against our 45
degree angle you would have to go up
into the chamber before it started
moving so we need to avoid that and make
sure we follow this the way we do that
is when we’re first putting our popsicle
the inside the clay body we don’t want
it pointed at this angle we need to make
sure that it’s lined up so that the
popsicle stick is resting against the
roof of the ocarina inside there you
have it now you know how to make a
working ocarina using just a little bit
of ceramic clay and some popsicle sticks
this might work pretty well with other
types of clay as well I haven’t
personally tried any air dry clay or
baked dry clays I should warn you I do
not recommend you try this with any
polymer clays likes kopi or fimo as
those can be toxic and you really don’t
want to be putting them in your mouth
thanks for joining us for this project
today we look forward to the next one
talk to you then I need another hole to
keep playing the song can’t go high
enough to finish it pressing clay down
into the body of the ocarina and messing
with the tone hey guys if you are on
twitter come follow me on twitter at the
king of random it’s a great place to
connect with me one on one that’s all
I’m gonna say about that because if you
want to you will and if you don’t you
won’t
workshop in the past we’ve done a few
different experiments using clay
including making our own clay that we
found on the side of the riverbank and a
couple of tests of hiring clay in a
barbecue today we’re gonna try and build
something specific out of play and see
if we can get it to work for this
project I do have some commercially
available ceramic clay instead of using
the river clay the reason I’m doing that
is I might want to try firing the
project we do today and I want to make
sure that I’m using some clay that has
the proper mixture of grog or other
additives to make sure that it fires
correctly without cracking too much our
River clay can fire but so far it’s got
some serious problems with cracking and
I haven’t quite nailed down the formula
of what to do to stop that from
happening there’s plenty of places where
you can buy ceramic clay commercially a
lot of hobby stores carry or I got this
25 pound block on Amazon where
surprisingly cheap we’ll put a link down
in the description if you prefer to do
that the goal is to take this clay in to
shape it into a functional musical
instrument we’re going to try to make a
clay ocarina all we’re going to need is
a handful size ball of clay a little bit
of water and a few popsicle sticks this
is a water-based clay so it can dry out
so I’m just gonna break off the piece
that I need and then seal the plastic
bag so the rest of it doesn’t go bad
there we go this ball slightly smaller
than my fist is probably more than
enough so we’ll just set that aside
close up the rest this play sort of just
trying to squeeze extra air out of the
bag now that we have our clay I want to
prep our popsicle sticks to shape them
just a little bit into more useful tools
the shaping on these sticks is going to
be very basic and quick I want a flat
edge on one end of the popsicle stick so
let’s cut it to the shape we need now
let’s just take a little bit of
sandpaper smooth that cut down and taper
it on one side so it’s sloped you can
now see that the front of this popsicle
stick sort of slopes down into a chisel
shape that’ll make it easier to get some
of the details we need in our clay
let’s do the same thing to the other
three popsicle sticks you might only
need two of these but I like to have a
couple of backups
before we start sculpting the clay into
the shape of our ocarina let’s spend a
couple minutes just throwing it down on
the table this will help force out any
air bubbles that could cause problems
when you fire it there we go our clay is
pretty well wedged I think meaning most
of the air bubbles have been forced out
of it and that’s what we want that means
it’s a lot less likely to burst when we
put it in the kiln so now let’s start by
breaking our clay up into three pieces
one smaller piece which we’ll set aside
for a moment smaller than a golf ball
bigger than a marble penny in between
those two now we want to take the rest
of our little play ball and divide it in
half doesn’t need to be perfectly in
half just mostly in half will work
pretty well now what we need to do is
form our clay into the shape of the body
of an ocarina I am going to try to get a
sort of teardrop shape for my ocarina
and see if we can get that to work just
start by rolling it at a little bit of a
taper that’s gonna give us narrow end
and a wide end then just can use my
thumb and pinch this out so we have sort
of a long teardrop shaped dish and go
that looks pretty good just flip it up
head down and press it down a little bit
so our edges are all meeting the table
that means you’re gonna have one flat
plane surface now that we’ve got our
first half made let’s make another one
just like it
[Music]
that’s a pretty good nice hollow shape
let’s do the same thing flip it upside
down and make sure that the edge is
coming all the way down to the table all
the way around it now this is looking
pretty good but I think I actually want
to spread it out and make it a little
bit flatter and wider so I’m gonna try
doing that sort of widen it up a little
bit on both of them there we go if we
can just visualize putting those two
together I think we’re starting to see a
pretty decent ocarina shape now we have
our two halves I’m just gonna smooth
them out a little bit it’ll probably end
up getting a little bit messed up later
as we’re adding on other parts and
making it all work
but just for the heck of it let’s smooth
down the outside a little bit there we
go we’ve got our two halves and now what
we need to do is put them together and
get them to stay connected really well
one thing that really helps with this is
if we score the two sides of clay I’m
just gonna take the back of this knife
make some scratch marks all along the
outside Ridge here now I’m going to add
just a little bit of water going all the
way around one side now let’s press the
two sides together add just a little bit
of pressure we really want them to stick
pretty well sometimes you can even see a
little bit of water starting to ooze out
it’s a good sign now I’m just going to
use my fingers and thumbs try and smear
the clay down over the seam so we have a
nice permanent bond now this sort of
teardrop or almond shaped piece of clay
is full of air the whole thing’s Hollow
would probably float if we put it on
water right now but it’s a water-based
clay and that could sort of make it
dissolve a little bit so I’m not gonna
do that but this is where we’re trying
to get to we now have a hollow piece of
clay shaped somewhat like a teardrop or
almond moving on to the next stage we’re
gonna grab our little piece of clay that
we set aside and one of our popsicle
stick tools let’s form the piece of clay
into a sort of flattened cylinder so
first I’m just going to roll it that’s
longer than we need
press it down pull it again there we go
this is just a little bit over an inch
long you can see it’s a good sized
little cylinder now I’m just going to
take a couple of fingers and smush it
down a little bit flat not all the way
it’s somewhat flat so what we’re going
to do is this is going to be our
mouthpiece which attaches to our ocarina
about right here the side of our ocarina
is sloped so let’s take a knife and cut
our mouthpiece at a similar angle so
that will fit nicely on to the side
there we go we can see that’s a much
better matchup than when it was just the
square end now before we attach it we
want to take our popsicle stick get it
wet in our cup of water and then we want
to run the popsicle stick through the
length of this piece of clay that’s
going to be our mouthpiece there we go
we have that popsicle stick going in one
side traveling all the way through the
mouthpiece and sticking out about an
inch on the other side now holding onto
the popsicle stick not the mouthpiece
itself we’re going to push the popsicle
stick through the side wall of the body
of the ocarina
once you actually punched through the
clay wall sort of has a lot more give to
it and we don’t want our mouthpiece
sticking straight out from the side we
want it kind of angled down this way the
popsicle stick inside the mouthpiece is
angled so that it lines up approximately
with the roof of our ocarina we have
that hole now I’m just going to do the
same scoring on this clay that I did
when I put the other pieces together
[Music]
water there we go now we’re gonna press
this back on I’m gonna try and press our
mouthpiece into the clay we want to get
it to bond but of course we don’t want
to push it so hard that it collapses the
body of the ocarina at this point what
we have is a hollow body that will be in
the sound chamber for our ocarina and a
tube coming off of it and that’s where
we’re gonna blow the air into the
instrument just to check I’m gonna see
if we can still slide this popsicle
stick in and out because we don’t want
it to grip too hard on to the size of
the clay you can see that as the
popsicle stick has absorbed water it
started getting more of the clay stuck
to it I’m just gonna scrape that off now
I’ll dip the stick in our water again
and I’m gonna put it back into the
mouthpiece in ocarina just the same way
it was before we now want to take a
second popsicle stick and use it to
start carving out a hole for the music
will be played so let’s get that
popsicle stick wet the same way we did
it the first one and now we need to
start using it to cut into our clay just
barely after where the mouthpiece meets
the body of the clay we want to cut down
into the clay lined up with where our
first popsicle stick is you can see if
the edges of this popsicle stick were
visible it’d be about right here and
here so I’m gonna take this popsicle
stick and cut down into the clay and try
and hit the first popsicle stick and go
this should cut through the clay fairly
easily and then of course it stops when
it hits the popsicle stick so we now
have a little slot going down in there
this is tapered so it’s just hitting in
one point you can’t see either popsicle
stick down in that hole yet what we want
to do is about the same width of our
popsicle stick we then want to cut
another slot that goes down and hits the
first possible stick
in fact we can go on all four sides we
just want a square piece here that’s
kind of cut out now I’m going to use
this popsicle stick and just sort of
scoop out the piece of clay that we’ve
just cut at this point you can see a
little bit of the popsicle stick that’s
running through the mouthpiece into the
body let’s just try and carve away the
clay down in there until we can see a
nice square piece of popsicle stick now
we’ve got the body we’ve got the
mouthpiece and we have a hole that leads
down into the popsicle stick which is a
channel from one to the other at this
point let’s take one of our popsicle
stick tools and try and add a 45-degree
slope from the top of the ocarina down
to the point where this hole meets the
popsicle stick this side of the clay
meets the popsicle stick right here at
the back of our square hole and that’s
where we want the base of our slope to
be so we’re going to slope from this
point back to about right here start
taking a little bit of clay off at a
tone
[Music]
we can now see the clay running from the
top of the ocarina sloping down at about
a 45 degree angle to where it runs into
this popsicle stick now let’s try to
gently slide the first popsicle stick
out of the ocarina body and mouthpiece
one thing we want to do is verify that
the very edge at the bottom of our slope
is nice and straight you can see that as
I pulled the popsicle stick out it got a
little bit wavy so I’m just gonna use
the tools and see if I can straighten
that out a little bit oh that’s not
perfect but it’s a fairly straight edge
I’m down here at the bottom there’s this
shelving plate and one thing we want to
make sure is that it sticks farther into
the ocarina body than this piece of clay
on the top at this point if everything
has been done correctly we should be
able to blow into it and get a musical
tone hey we got it to work beautiful
I’ll let you know
this one actually worked on the first
try which is I think the first time I’ve
ever had this succeed the first time I
did it this setup is very finicky and
fiddly and a lot of the time you’re
going to need to tinker with it and toy
with it a lot before you really get a
nice tone if you blow into it and you
just get a sound then you’re just going
to need to keep playing with it and make
sure you have every different point
lined up just the way it needs to be
sounds kind of like a train whistle
not bad ceramic clay is non-toxic if you
actually eat any of the clay it might
plug up your digestive tract a little
bit and that’s not gonna be comfortable
so you don’t want to eat your clay but
if it gets on your mouth a little bit
it’s not something you have to worry
about this actually works fairly well so
let’s do a little bit of cosmetic
clean-up to make it look nicer on the
outside
[Music]
at this point our ocarina is functioning
but it only plays one note so it’s
really kind of more of a whistle than an
ocarina what we need to do is add some
finger holes that will let us change the
tones I’ll admit I’m actually not an
expert on where how many what size of
holes should be put into an ocarina to
really get the best variety of notes so
I’m just gonna take a drill bit start
carefully adding some holes to it and
see if they’ll help me change the tone
at all trying to sort of figure out
where I’d put my fingers and I’m just
gonna try putting holes in that spot
well here’s one right here let’s see
what happens if a drill a nice little
hole right here well the first hole
works let’s see if we can add a second
one I’m gonna try putting this hole over
where this finger should go
[Music]
it’s a different tone but it’s only a
very slight change I wonder if I need to
make that hole a little bit bigger to
get the higher pitch that I’m looking
for it’s definitely higher it’s not
beautiful it plays and it makes
different notes which are definitely
important features as you can hear it’s
not like the nicest richest tone and I
think part of that is that even though
I’ve been using a drill bit some little
bits of clay are now sticking down into
the body of the ocarina and that doesn’t
help with the sound really flowing
through it very nicely I’m gonna see if
I can take my exacto knife I’m gonna try
and cut a hole into the body of the
ocarina and smooth out the surface where
I drilled the sound holes all right I
think I managed to smooth down the area
around the holes a little bit now let’s
use this same piece of clay and plug up
the hole that we cut all right let’s see
if it still plays after we cut the
bottom off yeah I think that’s pretty
good I think that really did help bring
out the tone again doesn’t quite work
for the Zelda songs that’s the best it
sounded yet well I think if I keep
adding holes to it I might ruin it
like I said I’m not a professional
ocarina maker this is just sort of a fun
toy instrument that you can make at home
just using some clay and I’m pretty
happy with how this one has turned out
it’s got a good shape to it I’ve got
four different tones I might even try
adding a few more holes once it’s dried
out more when the clay is more dry I
should be able to drill into it without
pushing it out the bottom it will act
more like a particulate which the drill
bit should be able to get out
easily if you’re trying to make your own
ocarina and you’re having problems
getting it to produce a tone I’ve made a
little diagram that might help you
troubleshoot what the problem is this
whole image is a cross-section of the
ocarina if we were to take a very sharp
knife and cut it from this point all the
way back through this is what we would
see if we looked at it on the side so
this right here is the mouthpiece this
right here is the 45-degree slope that
we have in our ocarina this is the
inside of the chamber a couple of things
we need to look out for this distance
right here is approximately the same as
the width of your popsicle stick this
will give us a nice square shape looking
down into the hole we have made in the
ocarina the bottom piece of clay should
extend out farther than the top piece of
clay you should be able to look down
into the ocarina and see this little lip
of clay sticking out farther than this
bit another common problem is for this
edge to be the wrong shape it needs to
be a nice clean line and approximately a
45 degree angle there are two important
things going on with this point of the
clay as well the first is that this
point needs to be in between the top of
our air channel and the bottom of our
air channel I found I have a little bit
more success if it’s slightly above the
middle but it should be lower than the
height of the top of our air channel the
other point to look out for is that the
air needs to be traveling into the
ocarina split on this 45 degree angle
and then be traveling right along the
roof of the ocarina where it will swirl
around in the side what we can’t have is
for the air to go in and then have a
large cavity that goes up we don’t want
this 45 degree angle to be pointing down
into the cavity so this is what we don’t
want we don’t want our air to come in
hit the angle of the clay and then have
to go up and around you can see here
that it travels in and can go right into
a smooth swirling motion here when it
goes in and gets split against our 45
degree angle you would have to go up
into the chamber before it started
moving so we need to avoid that and make
sure we follow this the way we do that
is when we’re first putting our popsicle
the inside the clay body we don’t want
it pointed at this angle we need to make
sure that it’s lined up so that the
popsicle stick is resting against the
roof of the ocarina inside there you
have it now you know how to make a
working ocarina using just a little bit
of ceramic clay and some popsicle sticks
this might work pretty well with other
types of clay as well I haven’t
personally tried any air dry clay or
baked dry clays I should warn you I do
not recommend you try this with any
polymer clays likes kopi or fimo as
those can be toxic and you really don’t
want to be putting them in your mouth
thanks for joining us for this project
today we look forward to the next one
talk to you then I need another hole to
keep playing the song can’t go high
enough to finish it pressing clay down
into the body of the ocarina and messing
with the tone hey guys if you are on
twitter come follow me on twitter at the
king of random it’s a great place to
connect with me one on one that’s all
I’m gonna say about that because if you
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