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Our One-Of-A-Kind Collapsible Cajon Drum

Editor’s Note: This story comes to you from the “Artists Abroad Trip” of summer ’13. Myself and two friends–Corey and Aaron–made an extremely budgeted trip around the world which we documented on a blog that unfortunately no longer exists. Traveling the world can be difficult. Traveling the world while carrying everything you need to run a music/photography/travel website, camping equipment and everything else a normal global traveler carries can be even more difficult. And on top of all of that stuff we carry in our packs, I still have a guitar and a ukulele to carry in my hand, Aaron carries a bag with all of our food in his, and Corey has to carry the cajon drum. In a bit of well-placed foresight, we realized how difficult it would be to tote around a big box, so thus the idea of the collapsible model was born. I had a few ideas floating around in my head for a month or so before we left, but true to my nature I put off the actual build to the last minute (about 3 days before we left to be exact) and threw it together in one day. The basic idea was to use a lightweight plywood instead of the heavier fiberglass-type material that the regular Pearl Boom Box Cajon was made of. I basically just made new sides out of the plywood, and made a frame to hold the existing drum head and snares from the Pearl drum. A couple of our friends helped with sanding and assembly, and let me use their garage for the project. It’s all held together with bolts and wing nuts, and is taken down easily to a much smaller size which fits inside of a rack case we picked up in New York City before our flight. Unfortunately for Corey, the case has now also been filled with food, extra strings and such for my guitar, and a host of other random things. His self-appointed nickname for the trip is “The Mule.”

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