large box for musical Christmas tree stand

[Alexandra van Geel]

Hi folks. I'm going to be building a large box (about 18"x18"x12") with removable bottom and top that will be used both for storage of an antique music-box Christmas tree stand and for displaying the stand (with small artificial tree) on to serve as a sounding board. The sounding board will be redwood, and I'm thinking of using redwood for the box sides as well. For musical purposes, it was recommended to me to have the sides be only 1/2" thick. My concern is whether that would be robust enough for a box of that size, structurally. Thoughts?

[roger wiegand]

I'd expect it to be fine. Those stands don't weigh very much and the bases are wide to spread the load around. Note that only the top needs to be thin to make a sound chamber. You may need to experiment to see of any sort of sound hole is required-- if the lid is not a real tight fit, you many not. The material used in the sides and bottom won't make a lot of difference to the sound-- most music boxes with sounding boards (like Reginas or Stellas) will use quite thin wood (less than 1/4") for the soundboard, then heavy wood for the rest of the case, just like a piano. You will want a rigid attachment between the music box and the sound board, I haven't looked at the inside of one of these for a while, I don't remember how the movement is situated in the base, it may already be using the base of the stand as a sound board.

[Weogo Reed]

Hi Alexandra,

I suggest a thin, stiff top for better music box amplification.
'Aircraft' Birch plywood could be a good choice, though thin Redwood could work as well.

Your box dimensions will affect the sound of the music stand box, just like the
size of a speaker box affects what comes out of it.

An 18" box with 1/2" walls has an inside dimension of 17", which translates to about 794Hz, close to a G.
So this frequency would be reinforced in two dimensions by the box.
This could possibly be a weak note from your music box stand, and help balance the sound of the stand, but
more likely it could over-accentuate this note, and possibly cause the top to 'buzz'.
12" and 18" are divisible by six, so the third dimension will also be adding some additive reinforcement.

When recording studios are built, dimensions for width/depth/height are chosen for minimal additive reinforcement.
For instance a box with inside dimensions of 13.3" x 17" x 20.5" would give minimal additive reinforcement.
You can look online - there are several sites with various calculators and combinations of dimensions to choose from.
Most sites are in feet or meters, but the relationships will be the same if you simply convert the feet/meters to inches.
Studying how sound behaves is remarkable rewarding, and going down this rabbit hole can be time consuming!

For simplicity, you could do some simple, inexpensive experiments,
starting with a piece of plywood on top of a milk crate.
Change the size of the plywood, add cheap plywood sides, and listening for what sounds best.

Please let us know what you finally build!

Thanks and good health, Weogo