III. How to make a Rain Stick (Two different kinds)

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Part One: Kid Quality Rain Stick
Ages: 7 and older. 
Time Needed:  Approximately one hour for basic work. More time to decorate.
Materials:  

1. Cardboard Tubes. a. Simplest -  paper towel rolls.  b. Best sounding - 24" Postal Tubes with a diameter of 2"-2 1/2". (they usually come with end caps and can be ordered 50 at a time).
2. Nails one quarter inch shorter than the diameter of your tube.
3. Hammer.
4. Tape - Masking, duct, clear packing, or contact paper.

How To Make It:  

• Draw a spiral along the length of your tube.
• Hammer nails along the spiral approximately one finger width apart.
• Fill with popcorn, rice, beans etc. 
• Cap ends
• Cover nail heads with tape or contact paper.
• Decorate. One innovative teacher uses brown shoe polish over strips of torn (rather than cut with a scissor) masking tape. The result looks kind of like wood)

For Younger Children (ages 4-5) you may want to try the following two alternatives:

• Instead of hammering nails, you can wad up small pieces of newspaper and fill your tube with that. Then put in the pop corn.  You may need to experiment with different size wads.
• One innovative teacher suggested using an egg carton. Put the pop corn or beans and rice in an empty egg carton and tape closed. Turn so the stuff falls from compartment to compartment.

• PVC Pipe (3-6 feet in length, 2 inches to 2 and 3/4 inches in diameter. or even bigger!)
• Bamboo barbecue skewers
• Sandpaper
• Colored tissue paper
• Water Based Polyurethane
• Brush
• Rubber end caps
• Electric drill with bit
• Filling material - popcorn, rice, dried peas etc.

How To Make It:

Take a piece of PVC pie, (the lighter weight black grade is the easiest to work with since it is less to lift. It is also louder. I think you can get it at electrical supply stores.) Drill holes in a spiral approximately 1/4 inch apart. You might want to mark the holes a head of time. But a little bit of free form is alright too. The holes should be large enough to accept the bamboo pegs snugly but not so snugly that they are impossible to hammer in. Then take the bamboo barbecue skewers and cut into peg lengths that are just shorter than the diameter of the Tube. In other words you want the peg to go across the open space of the tube but not jam into the opposite side.  Hammer pegs into holes. If the fit is nice and snug there is no need for any glue. Sand it down so that the ends of the skewers are flush with the outside surface of the pipe. Decorate. Experiment with different amounts and kids of filler material. Cap the Ends. I find that the rubber loosens up after awhile. After having the end caps fall off at the worst moments, spreading popcorn and rice all over the place. I started gluing them. So far the only thing that seems to hold is painter's caulk.

Decorating Tip: When I decorate my rainsticks I tear or cut tissue paper into small pieces and then pain them onto the tube with water based Polyurethane. The result is a very pleasing multicolored overlapping "Decoupage" effect. I then add several more coats of the Polyurethane ("glossy" is the shiniest but "semi-gloss" works too) for a deep shine sanding lightly between coast with a very fine grit sandpaper.  When I have the black kind of pipe I just sand it and poly it. The ends of the skewers make a beautiful pattern on the black tube.

Time Needed: Depending upon the length of pipe you are working on, it could take anywhere from 4 to 10 hours of work to complete your rainstick.  However, when it is done it will last a lifetime and give a lot of pleasure to anyone who plays it.

Tip: I have found that local plumbers and plumbing supply as well as electrical supply companies are quite generous in donating scraps of PVC pipe (some as long as 6 feet!) for making rainsticks. The rubber stoppers I use for the ends though are a couple of bucks apiece, but worth it for their protective value! Before you actually spend money on this project, give these folks a call and see what you can scrounge up. Good luck!

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