Mechanical Music Box Set by Kikkerland

(as of 10/04/2010 11:34 - more info)

$14.15

Listed Under: Music gifts

  • Make your own music box melodies
  • Includes instructions, “Happy Birthday” song, 3 strips unpunched and a hole punch
  • 3″L x 1″W

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Make your own music box melodies with this mechanical music box set. Comes with hand-cranked music box, one pre-punched music strip that plays the “Happy Birthday” song, 3 unpunched strips (48cm), a hole punch, and instruction manual to have you creating your own music box melody in minutes.

5 Reviews

  1. Michael Feola says:
    February 5, 2010 at 12:00 am

    its nice for what it is, a little music box where you can make your own music… the only problem is that it doesnt loop and it takes a lot of turns to get to the end of your little track… but i expected that coming it, its still a neat little box

    Reply
  2. Chris M. Graver says:
    January 27, 2010 at 12:00 am

    I spent hours last night playing with this little guy. I can understand the frustration some reviewers have expressed with this being a little difficult to work. Its a toy that requires a lot of patience but the payoff is immense. Don’t get this unless you’re intrigued by the ability to create your own tunes. True, you can transcribe other music onto the paper, but it will be time consuming and not nearly as fun (for me anyway). Its great for a lazy sunday afternoon with nothing to do but fool around on it, making a pretty little tune. The tone is great when played against a nice wood. My only suggestion is to be sure to get extra paper, because it takes a few tries to get things just right, and you can’t just ‘undo’.

    Reply
  3. Holly K. Lee says:
    February 28, 2009 at 12:00 am

    I gave this as a gift to a music teacher. He loved composing the tune himself. It was a creative gift! I do wish there was an option of a decorative encasement for the final product.

    Reply
  4. EwoK says:
    December 1, 2008 at 12:00 am

    First off it requires a specific density paper, which is fine, except that you cant bind it and create a loop out of it without jamming the device, meaning every time you play your tune, you have to manually rethread it, which takes a bit of force to get it to catch.

    Secondly, if your looking at the little handcrank and thinking “wind-up”, think again, its a manual crank which means you have to continually crank it to play your tunes, and because of which will never play in that perfect music box tempo.

    Thirdly, the gear ratio’s on this device are absurd. By the time you get through a 30 second song you’ve spun the crank 70 times (I counted). I took a close look at it and it appears there are two superfluous gears, 4 in all, which i can only assume they put in there because if they just used 2 then it might have been overkill, but either way its unpleasant to use.

    Furthermore, the cheap plastic gears make a nasty crunching noise that is loud enough to rival the music itself.

    Too cheap to return and too crappy to use, I guess it will make a novel paperweight.

    Reply
  5. Thomas C. Poff says:
    December 26, 2007 at 12:00 am

    These music boxes are awfully neat. I set them up on a 3″ x 3″ square of wood about 1/2″ thick. This allows them to resonate. The hard part is finding the little metric machine screws to affix them to the wood block [or anything else]. They come with little screws that are pretty useless with a resonator.

    But hey once set up you can make your own tunes and program them. They work as a paper-tape reader that translates the notes you punch [punch included] into notes of music. I used 100 lb paper from Staples/Office Depot and very easily made my own music sequences.

    For $15 they are quite the deal. Just remember you must screw them down to some surface (wood is great) that will allow them to resonate properly. Great for kids probably about 8 yrs or older. You can see most of the mechanical behavior (gears, etc).

    Reply

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