Modeled after naturally occurring Pala seeds, these 3D printed Pala seed nutshells–attached to a comfortable wrist strap–create a pleasant, smooth sound perfect for ambient, low-volume settings. These are perfect for the world percussionist or the local percussionist looking to add a unique element to their sound.

I use them in conjunction with a maraca and my didgeridoos to add an Australian Indigenous percussion to the sound of the didgeridoo which is known to have meditative and healing energy effect to the player and those listening to the sound that is the earliest known wind instrument.

The “pala shells” were created in openSCAD by taking a sphere and resizing it asymmetrically in XYZ to create the somewhat flattened shape.  The resized and squashed sphere then had its bottom truncated to open the bottom of the shell to emit sound when rattling against other other pala shells. The 9x file is simply the 1x file imported into Prusa Slicer, replicated for 9 instances and arranged.  Resolution is 0.2 and printed with a 0.4 nozzle on my RepRap i3 Custom (based on Prusa i3 “rework” variant).

There are two .STL files, one with a single shell and another grouped on the plater with 9 shells.  I was testing new filament settings and printed the 9x file in all the filaments and colors I have.  Filament was Hatchbox PLA, PPLA, PLA Pro+ and PLA Wood.  Obviously printing 9 at a time is an advantage and you don't have to make as many as I did.  Good sound can be had even with 2 or 3 courses of beads.

To complete the instrument,  the beads were threaded onto synthetic cord, and knotted to hold the beads about 2.5cm apart from each other.  To make the handle the cords were gathered together after threading and wrapped with waxed hemp cord, and made into a loop.  Waxed hemp is much softer than the synthetic cord used to string the shells, favored for its abrasion resistance.

Enjoy!