The Kantele comes from a Finnish, folk set of roots.  In their most native form the instruments were fashioned using an axe!  However, my Kantele are made using several hardwoods and I strive to make them beautiful as well as practical.  I use Oak, Ash, Walnut, Sycamore and Beech.  If you would like to make your own instrument here is where I bought my plans together with a good guide to construction on CD.  When I bought mine in 2010 the cost was £7.50. Michael J King for original plans and supporting CD

Kantele made to original plans supplied by Michael J King but with subsequent modifications

Anyone wishing, perhaps as a new hobby, to make beautiful wooden artefacts could not do better than begin with one of these simple instruments.  The five string Kantele is an ideal instrument with which to introduce music making to infants of say 5 to 8 years of age.  Additionally, construction is simple and, but for the soundboard, can be achieved using small pieces of just about any attractive hardwood off-cuts lying around.  The soundboard needs to be quite thin - 5mm for the standard, 5 string instrument and, say, 5 to 6mm for the 10 stringed, larger one.  There will usually be a workshop near you who will “thickness” some Sycamore or Beech for you.  The rest can be pulled off using standard, mostly inexpensive, tools.  Click here for my suggested modifications.

Kantele come in many sizes bearing 5 or more strings.  The one above is a Piccolo Kantele and is but 30cm )about 12 inches) end to end.  It could be described as supplying the descant register to the larger instruments.

A completed 5 string Kantele can be constructed from materials costing less than £20.  Depending upon how fastidious you are as a woodworker the number of hours spent upon your project will be perhaps some 10 to 15.

Kantele