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Yes! You too can make your own drum! See below for details on how it's done ! Do it today !
In the Spring of 1994 I made this hour-glass shaped drum as part of an experiment in 'Urban Materials Utilization'. There was a need to be outfitted with a drum of some kind so that I could attend a 'Shamanic Workshop' held in Carbondale, Co. in the Summer. I wanted to build the drum myself so that my spirit would be part of the drum. I also thought that it would be interesting to design a drum that was made out of materials that I had around the house. In doing so, I somehow created what one might call a 'plywood' drum made out of broad sections of wood composite (the kind used in floor underlayment). Basically, I cut rings out of this material with a band saw and glued them together. The hour-glass shape of the drum body was an important factor, because I used the 'donut hole' from each inside ring cut to make a smaller ring, thus reducing the amount of waste material. An enlarged view of the drum with the heads removed will give you a better idea:
You can see the layers of wood inside the drum. The outside of the drum is smooth; it is coated with several layers of sealer and painted. You cannot see any of the wood plies on the outside of this drum. But, this is old data... This drum was wear tested-- I beat the hell out of this drum for a year and it didn't break.... but I saw the need to continue. I was driven to build a BIGGER, LOUDER drum!
Here is what I would like the drum body to look like. The drum diameters and height are approximate values.
Those extra rings on the goblet stem are for tuning the instrument. I plan to run the drawstrings through holes in the first flange and tie them onto machined eye hooks from the bottom flange. The drawing on the right shows the design concept with a drum head attached.
Here is an exploded 3-D view of the goblet rings. Yes, I plan to cut 18 inch diameter rings out of wood composite and glue them all together! I like this drawing. It reminds me of Dali for some reason.
In the first picture you can see one of the smaller sections sitting on the band saw. The second picture shows most of the bowl of the goblet completed. Each section is marked showing the degree of cut and overlay point (as each circle is cut, it is used to mark the size and shape of the next section to be cut).
The sections were glued using Elmer's Woodworking Glue (aliphatic resin) and clamped overnight with a pipe clamp. The first picture unclearly shows the body bowl between two sections of wood. The pipe clamp runs through the middle of the body, so you can't see it. The second picture is an illustration of an additional gluing step performed before the sections are put together. Instead of messing with broken saw blades, I simply cut a diagonal through each section in order to cut the inside hole. The kerf (the wood that is removed from the cutting action) was small enough as to not have any noticeable effect on the circular section. I glued each circle together and held them together with tape overnight.
looking. I used a hand shaping tool to make the rough cuts and then I finished off the surface with sand paper. It is not worth sanding the particle board too much because with all those mixed-up grains and glue, you can't really get the surface too smooth. I just get as much of the larger gaps left from the shaping tool as I can. The photo below shows a composite view of the sanded drum bowl on the left half and with a first coat of white sealer on the right half.
I am using some gesso that was left over from another project as sealer material. I have been sanding between each coat-- It may get as many as 8 coats of gesso before it's done.
The drawing shows a cross-section of the drum. The thickness of the wood is finally revealed. Note that it is thinner near the head. I have also shown a detail of the tone ring. I may make the tone ring next week. Stay tuned!
I'm just 'showing off' how many C-clamps I own! I have lots of clamps because I get a thrill out of gluing pieces of wood together. This next picture shows the three sections of the drum; the bowl, stem., and foot.
I have decided to make the flange section out of the same material as the rest of the drum. I do have some concerns about how well the bottom flange will hold up under the tension of a stretched drum head. I may decide to set in some metal reinforcing plates behind the flange to help spread out the force that each eye-bolt will have on the wood. If I find some suitable material in the next week or so, then I will probably do that. Here is a preview of the final 'look' of the drum:
The three sections have not been glued together yet. I think that I may use some dowel joints, especially for the foot section when I finally glue them together. The height of the drum is a little more than in the proposed design. It is now about 27 inches high. You probably wonder how much this drum weighs. Well, so far it comes to 20 lbs. With the addition of a toe piece and the drum hardware, the final weight could be around 23 lbs.
The tone ring was made from a half inch diameter copper tube that was bent into a hoop. The hoop diameter was just a bit larger than the outside diameter of the drum bowl. A smaller piece of copper (about 1 inch length) was split and fashioned to fit snugly inside of the tube where the ends of the hoop met. This intersection was generously fluxed and sweat soldered together (I'm using non-leaded solder in this picture). Just before soldering, however, I placed a little Mojo inside the tube. I can not tell you what it was, but it was something that I had in
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my possession for many years. It is now sealed inside the tone ring. If you were to shake the ring, you would hear it rattle inside the tube!-- This adds a personal touch to the instrument; It most likely will drive insane any of the spirits unacquainted with the presence of the mojo. Heh, heh!
After the tone ring has cooled down, it is centered onto the drum bowl. Some corrugated cardboard is taped around the edge of the bowl to act as a spacer between the body and the drum head when the skin gets fitted over the tone ring.
The skin is taken from it's bath and blotted to remove any excess water (so it's not dripping wet) and draped over the tone ring and drum bowl.
A steel tension ring is placed over the skin. I pushed the ring down to 2 inches below the top of the tone ring. It is a good idea to measure the distance of the tension ring around the diameter of the drum to make sure that the ring sits evenly on the drum.
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Interesting note: While I was in Portland, I stopped in at a craft store where I purchased some additional skins for future drum projects. (This is how I operate-- I go to conventions and buy skins!) While I was in the shop, I noticed that they had these steel rings for sale, about $3.00 for the 18 inch diameter size. I asked the store owner what they were for-- he said that they were for making dream catchers. I said that they would be good for making drums too, so I bought a bunch of 'em, in all kinds of sizes.
The outside ends of the skin that's left flapping under the tension ring is turned up onto the top of the drum head and held momentarily with masking tape. Make sure that the masking tape is not too sticky-- it should have just enough hold to keep the skin up until the next step:
With the tape holding the skin flaps up, take some string and start winding it around the top of the tension ring. Start out loosely at first-- when you have enough hold on the skin flap with the string, then you can slip the masking tape out from under the string. Now you can wind the string around the skin tightly (I happened to use blue yarn for string, and it worked out O.K.) Keep winding the string. Go up to the bottom of the copper tone ring as you wind. While you wind the string, look for weird looking folds in the skin-- The skin is still quite flexible and you can pull on the ends of the skin to remove most of the big folds in the skin. Little folds won't hurt the drum, but there should not be any folds or creases anywhere on the tone ring! Keep the string on the head, and let the skin dry overnight.
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By the next day, take the string off and pry off the head with the tone ring intact. The result is a fitted drum head! I have found that it is now easier to work with the head after it has been fitted and dried. I can now take my time measuring where I want to put the lacing and make the holes. When I put it back on, I will moisten the skin and trim off the excess skin-- but that's for next week!
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Holes are made in the skin using a leather punch. The holes are just above the tension ring so that when the rope is pulled taught, the loop along the outside edge of the head will pull down on the ring and not rip a larger hole in the skin. For this drum, I punched out sixteen (16) evenly spaced holes. I purchased about 70 feet of medium weight nylon rope for the lacing. The fitted head was moistened with a little water to soften it up a bit and the lacing rope are looped through the holes. For this drum, 16 lengths of rope (about 4 feet each) were looped through each pair of holes. After all of the rope was looped through, the head was placed onto the drum. This whole process was done rather quickly so the drum head did not get a chance to dry out. (It is best to keep it moistened enough to stretch the head over the tone ring properly). The ends of the rope were tied onto the eye bolts down by the flange. This process proved rather messy as the knots sort of got out of hand at times (I only know how to tie three kinds of knots). I promised myself that I would work on the knots latter-- in the meantime, while they continued to hold I took out an open ended wrench and began to tighten the bolts on the end of the flange. Just a bit at first, going around the flange and tweaking each eye-bolt a little. As tension increased on the rope, I could judge just how even the rope tension was by the sound of the note as I plucked an individual rope like a bass fiddle (there was an 'open' string area between the top flange and the side of the drum that made this possible. This was one of those lucky undocumented features that you sometimes get ;^/). This whole process went by rather quickly... I didn't stop to take pictures (sorry), but there is something about tuning an instrument, especially one that you have made by yourself. Anyway, before I did any drum head work at all, look what I did:
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