Meinl Make Your Own Cajon Kit with Snares - MADE IN EUROPE - Baltic Birch Wood, Includes Easy to Follow Manual (MYO-CAJ)

I built this cajon a couple of years ago. Mine just has the natural front. I don't think they had the others when I ordered it. I loved it then, and I still love it today! Putting it together was super easy. I didn't have straps like the ones shown in the picture so I just used a few small clamps and some books to hold it together while drying. After I assembled it, I had a friend paint a picture of a tree on one side and a quote on the other. Then I put a clear spray polyurethane coating on top of that. I haven't had any problems with chipping or anything. Sometimes a film builds up where I hit the face, but it cleans off pretty easily. I worked at a summer camp just after I built it and played it every day of the week for a whole summer, and it held up great! It has a good sound. You can get a decent bass towards the center of the face and higher sound at the top. I know you can get cajons that sound better than this one, but for the price, you can't beat it! Plus, you get the satisfaction of assembling it yourself, and throwing in a little of your own personality. I will say I wish I hadn't glued the front face to the body. It sort of deadened the sound a little, but I was able to make it work. Overall, I am very happy with my cajon. I might even buy the bongo cajon kit just for fun!

This was my first project with wood. I have some metal shop experience but had never built anything out of wood before, so this was to be a learning experience and hopefully have a working cajon at the end. TAKE YOUR TIME. This kit takes a while to build when you do it properly (several days). You want everything to dry nice and square. Luckily I did this part well. In terms of gluing everything, the instructions do a good job. Make sure everything fits well before gluing. The snare is a tricky part if you're concerned about sound. How tight do you want it, because you can't really change it once you put the front plate on. But you can't test the sound until you put the front plate on. I went with a tighter sound by moving the snare a little closer to the front plate. However, after finishing the cajon, I wanted more snare. I got a long screwdriver to losen the snare from the hole in the back and put a penny between the wood and the snare mount. That helped, but I think I could have used a nickel and gotten better sound. The last part of screwing the front plate on is where I started having problems. I followed the hole diagram very closely and counter-bored my holes. However, the corner holes line up exactly with the gap between wood pieces. Thus those screws don't make any contact with wood (and consequently just fall out). I drilled the holes before I glued those wood pieces so I didn't realized the problem until it was too late. I ended up screwing at a large angle to hit the wood sideways and dremeling the screw heads down smooth. Not a good solutions, but I didn't want to buy a new kit. As for finishing, I went with a dark mahogany stain and a polyurethane seal. Once again this was my first time with wood, so I learned a lot with this step and will do a much better job next time. I did two coats of the stain. Definitely need to sand the whole face down. I sanded the edges smooth (since they won't be perfect from gluing), and you can tell one section where the sanding was very different. Also definitely need to wipe up the excess stain on the wood. I have a few places where you can see the stain was dripping. I went with a gloss polyurethane finish. I wanted this to be water resistant so I went with that option. I did two coats, but a third would have really filled in the divots in the finish. A note on the front plate: I did a single coat of the stain and of the polyurethane on the front plate and I'm glad I did. The stain was fine, I just wanted a lighter front. But the polyurethane is heavy and I definitely noticed a big difference in sound after the polyurethane set. It sealed it up too good. I get great bass because of it, but those rich highs and snare are more muddy and subdued. The sound is about what you would expect for a $50 kit. It's not great, but it's not terrible. Could probably use a bass partition (which you could do yourself with another piece of wood), and definitely could use at least a second snare. The polyurethane definitely helped the bass but at the expense of the treble, so keep that in mind when you're deciding on the finish.

Came fast, well packed and nice materials. Read the instructions till you are thoroughly confused and then throw them away. They were written in Japanese , translated to Hindi, then Navaho and finally English. Something was lost between the designer and the final printing. I am a professional woodworker, i assembled it so it works....and was fortunate to have proper clamping tools etc. It sounds great, sturdy enough to sit on and looks terrific having been finished with a good sanding sealer, clear lacquer coats, a Vintage Amber wash and satin clear lacquer top coats. Don't let the wacky instructions put you off.....but don't take them too seriously either.

As an experienced carpenter this was relatively simple. Pieces were all precut & ready to assemble. It’s still in construction process but I know it will turn out as desired. I’ve compared my assembly to that of same items in music stores & I’m even a bit better as I really pay attention to detail. Only complaint is the way the pieces are cut & have dado cuts for pieces to fit & create the box doesn’t allow for the box to totally sit even on the floor as there is a tiny rocking. Now I used corner clamps on all corners, insured my angles inside were spot on but the way it was originally cut doesn’t allow for a ‘perfect’ sit. I checked similar models of same company in music stores to see that they had the same issue so it has to be in the dado cuts, possibly not deep enough or exactly on but it wasn’t a big deal as it will work as expected. And I get to finish it how I want. I’ll be getting another as I’m creating a music room for when my grandkids come over. I have the canon, keyboards, acoustic & electric guitars, mics, tambourine, Jews harp, & harmonicas.

It looks nice and came as promised. Only issue is that directions tell you to dry fit before you glue it together, great except that when I tried to remove the parts after dry fitting it was jammed - a tiny bit of nudging broke a peice off. A lot of glue later it seems to be ok, but let's see how long it will last before it fails. Other than that it was easy to put together, need lots of extras so please read everything clearly.

This is my first cajon that I've ever purchased. The cost of a brand new fully assembled cajon was making me second guess whether or not I should take the plunge into the world of box drums. When I saw this kit at the price, I figured why not? I'm so glad I did because, firstly, it was a fun project and secondly, it has some great sound. I'll get around to staining it with some clear stain because I love the natural birch color so much! Great product, great sound, and great value. Would buy again.

Our 6 year old daughter really wants to get into percussion and loves crafts. I bought this so that we could build it together, and then she could practice rhythm with it. Being 6, she wasn't enthused when she opened it, but once I explained what it was, she was very excited. It only took about an hour to assemble and seems good quality. Not sure how the sound compares to a high-end cajon, but it's fine for what she needs. I am thinking about buying their snare cajon kit as well, now that I have seen the quality and ease of this project. I would suggest putting a finish on it to prevent hand-oils from ruining it. I put a clear, matte polyurethane on it and it came out amazing. If you wipe it with mineral spirits first, it would help to bring out a little more of the grain. You could also stain it, but I left mine natural. Cool product!

Description says it comes with two sets of snares, but it only comes with one set. It also only shows one set in the instructions so the listing is wrong. (I informed the seller of the error) The one set that came in the kit was in bad shape (see pic). I ended up buying two new sets to install. The way they want you to mount the snare makes the bass area sound like a blend of snare and bass and the snare area is empty. I ended up remounting the two new snares. I put a dowl across the center of the box with the snares pointed up. Now the snare and bass are a bit more isolated. I can't imagine trying to build this with using just straps to pull it all together like the instructions recommend. I went to harbor freight and bought 6 big clamps all about $5 each. 10 clamps would have been better but it worked fine. Highly recommend getting clamps or you won't enjoy the build as much. It is really easy to build. I had it all together In Just a couple hours. Sanding and finishing took a bit longer but it's a 1 to 1-1/2 day build only due to having to let the glue dry. I used Gorilla wood glue. After relocating the snares the sound is much better than the way they want you to set it up. (See pics) highly recommend this change but that's just me. I sanded all edges flush with a block and 80grit paper. Finish sanded to 320 grit and then applied Linseed oil. All in all I'd say it looks good and sounds like a cheap Cajon. Good starter but I'm sure an upgrade will be in my near future.