Make Your Own Didjeridoo:

Materials
Mouthpieces
Bending
Paints/Stains
Lengths and Pitches

For Beginners, I recommend using 1.5in PVC. 2in PVC can be used for a more resonant sound, but it requires more air from the player to produce a drone.

Cut the PVC pipe to the desired length. A hack saw works well. PVC shavings are difficult to get off things like rugs, sweaters, fleece etc so take appropriate measures when cutting the pipe.

A longer instrument may sound nicer, more impressive or desirable, but it is harder to play. The longer it is, the more air it requires to play (and more effort to fit in your car). You want to learn on a short, yet good sounding instrument. My students begin on 3 foot 3 inch Didjeridoos. This is a good length to start. 3 feet three inches is also a third of ten feet. Ten feet is the length the pipe is sold at the hardware store, so you can make three great sounding didjeridoos out of one ten foot section.

You can remove the lettering on the PVC with a paper towel and some Acetone (also available at the hardware store). Use the acetone outside, or learn to hold your breath. If you are planning on bending and/or painting your didj, stop here and skip to the bending and painting section

Purchase some pure beeswax at a craft store. Make sure to ask if it is pure, that contains no paraffin. It is about 3 to 4 dollars a pound. One should be enough to fashion your first mouth piece and repair it the first few times you drop the instrument.

You will be softening the wax in hot water. The container in which you do this will basically be ruined for any other use. You really cannot clean the wax off. Water heated on a stove, as opposed to a microwave, stays hotter longer, so an old soup pot is best. The wax you heat in the water will leave a thin film on the surface. Since we will be dipping the finished mouthpiece in this film, you want it to stay molten. If it cools, and is reheated, you might get bubbles or chunks. Despite all of this, not everyone has a pot waiting around to be ruined, so use some Tupperware and a microwave is you have to.

Use some 60 grain sand paper to rough up the top inch of the end you plan to use for the mouth piece. The end you cut with the saw is probably rough. Use this end because the wax will adhere better. Of course if you have a pipe with two rough ends, you can sand one of them smooth and use the other end for the mouthpiece.

Heat the water to as hot a temperature as you can possibly dip your fingers into for a moment. Drop in a piece of wax a little bigger than a baby's fist. The surface of the wax will turn almost white. Let it melt a little so a film forms on the surface of the water (try not to let this harden).

Take the wax out carefully. You can put it on a paper towel if it is too hot. When the wax is white, it is almost too soft to mold well. Let it cool just a little, and then cut off some thin strips with a plastic knife (the knife will be ruined too).

Use these like clay to form your mouthpiece. When your lump of wax gets too cool, drop it into the water again.

The mouth piece serves one purpose: to make the opening of the instrument small enough for your mouth. The shape of it will greatly effect the ease of play. In shaping the mouthpiece, consider the following. It should provide a good seal around your mouth while not inhibiting your lips from buzzing. It should cup our lips like a trombone mouthpiece, but the cup should be no deeper than your lips are when pursed. 1.5in PVC can be played as a didjeridoo even without a mouth piece, so don't worry too much about the shape. Once you have a sense of the instrument, you will have more insight into the effect of shape on sound. I personally judge the quality of the mouth epic on the quality of the "boomerang" (whirring sound) that I can produce, but I am also very picky about shape. To many, it is not a big factor.

If you cannot play the didjeridoo, you might not know when your mouthpiece is ready. It is preferable to at least know how to make a basic drone. Then you know that when you can comfortably drone on the instrument, the mouth piece is ready.

When finished, dip the whole mouth piece end of the didjeridoo into the waxy film that has formed on the top of your water. This will smooth it out, and put a nice seal on the edges where the wax meets the PVC. The wax will turn white. Don't touch it again until it has cooled.

Enjoy Your new Didjeridoo.

Paints and Varnishes and Bending the Didjeridoo:

PVC becomes pliable at a relatively low temperature. You can heat your Didj with a blowtorch so that you can bend it to look more like a branch. Of course, you need to do this prior to painting and making the mouth piece

Things to consider:

PVC gives of very toxic carcinogenic fumes when heated. Only heat out doors, preferably on a windy day, and if at all possible, wear a respirator or mask.

Try not to blacken or blister the PVC. Paint will cover it up though.

It takes a little practice.

You may not like the look of a gleaming white plastic Didj. If you want to paint it, do it before you make a mouth piece.

Use 60 grain sand paper to scratch up the didjeridoo lengthwise. This will give the paint something to stick to, and will approximate wood grain.

Some students of mine used flat black spray paint after taping sections off in rings. The result looked great.

I like to stain the Didjeridoos to look like wood. I use Minwax Gel Mahogany Stain after heavy scoring with 60 grain sand paper. On a bent instrument, this works so well that a when a friend of mine who is a carpenter saw my first one, he exclaimed in all seriousness, "Wow, this is really nice wood!" When I told him it was plastic, he didn't believe me at first. To his credit, it was coming on dusk, so the light wasn't very good. But the Gel stain really looks great. Gel is the only kind of stain that sticks well to PVC. You can use acrylic paints to paint designs on it afterwards. Of course, do any bending before painting, and make the mouth piece last.

Finally, it is a good idea to apply a spray on clear coat finish to your didj. This will harden and protect the finish from scrapes. This is a good idea if you have gel stained your didj, and then painted acrylic designs on it. Raised acrylic designs can easily chip off. The clear coat will help prevent this. However, the clear coat will make your didj more smooth to the touch and more shiny in appearance. Since the clear coat represents a whole additional step in the construction process, if your need for a woody look and feel outweighs your need for a protected finish, you can skip this step.

Have Fun!

Read on for lengths and pitches, or
Back to making mouthpieces

Materials
Mouthpieces
Bending
Paints/Stains
Lengths and Pitches