Making a drum

[Brujo]

Greetings all,

I thought I'd ask for advise here before starting my project. Has anybody here ever turned a drum?

I have a few djembe drums one is obviously hand carved the other looks turned to me. Granted my lathe is not big enough to turn a 20" drum but I was thinking of doing a >10" as practice. Any advise would be great.

...as an aside what's going on with the pic of the day? It doesn't seem to be changing as much as it used to.

-Justin

 

[Steve Worcester]

...as an aside what's going on with the pic of the day? It doesn't seem to be changing as much as it used to.

-Justin

They are doing a coding change to get the pic of the day to work since we moved to the new domain name. I guess it is more work than they thought.

 

[john lucas]

Have you done a search on google. I've seen several articles written and a website or two but haven't looked for quite a while. There have been a lot of drums turned.

 

[Mjonesrdg]

A djembe

Hi Justin,

I turned a djembe out of a very large old salvage redwood timber. The 'kettle' part is 14" dia. x 11" deep..the whole thing stands about two feet high. Lovely bass voice! Fun project!

 

[Richard Baker]

Brujo,
For those of us who don't know, could you show us a picture of a djembe drum? Thanks.

 

[Mjonesrdg]

djembe photo

I'll send an email with a photo to anyone who asks. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to reduce a file size to the accepted 97 KB, or how to post a picture here.

 

[Dave Peebles]

Hey Richard,

Here is a link..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djembe

Best wishes,
Dave

 

[Richard Baker]

My software is probably different, but stuff to try- Find "picture size" and set to 640 x 480 pixels. Then find "optimize for internet", or something like that. Adjust "compression" up or down and check "preview" for file size. Repeat until the preview shows about a 90k file. Then "save optimized file", or something like that.

Stuff to try. Others here MUCH more knowledgeable than I.

 

[Richard Baker]

Dave,

That's a little ways past amazing. Makes me want to sell my sax and take up drumming.

 

[Brian Hahn]

I made a 1/2 size djembe last spring. I used one of the pictures at the Wikapedia link Dave Peebles listed as a guide. I used a section of mulberry log that wasn't completely dry for my first attempt. It warped way out of round as it dried. I used a black walnut log section for the second attempt and it turned out really nice. I hollowed the drum from both ends. I hollowed the head first and used a lot of strapping tape to help hold the blank in place when I hollowed the base.

I also made a tom-tom (double ended drum) at the same time. That was a lot easier and simpler to turn, but more of a challenge for stretching the skins.

 

[Mjonesrdg]

pretty drums

More here...

http://www.wwdrums.com/naturalpainted-djembes-c-52_22.html?osCsid=d764695a9954b9191695665a3a107d78

 

[Mjonesrdg]

more turned drums

http://www.wwdrums.com/djembe-drums-c-52.html

 

[Ron Sardo]

Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to reduce a file size to the accepted 97 KB, or how to post a picture here.

Try this software
http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm

 

[Mjonesrdg]

Here is my djembe...

Thank You, Ron, for leading me to the software!!

Made in two pieces and joined with mortice/tenon. The redwood has excellent tonal qualities, and the skin/head rings I turned from a white oak slab. It was a challenging project...and very rewarding. Upon completing the instrument, I learned that I don't have rhythm for diddly...but it makes a nice house decoration!

 

[Ken Grunke]

Justin,
I have turned several djembes of all sizes but no bigger than 15" rim diameter. If anyone asked for one bigger than 15", they were referred to as megalomaniacs
If anything, they needed a pretty fat wallet. I did this in a friend's shop between '95 and '98 full time then off and on since then. He had a big Oliver patternmaker's lathe, 24" swing and 96" between centers. It had a cross slide and rotating compound slide, just like a metal-turning lathe but no lead screw. I no longer have access to the lathe, and no longer have much interest in turning drums.
I would turn a log between centers first, and prepare it for mounting on a heavy 12" faceplate. What was to be the top was mounted to the faceplate first, the outside trued for a good surface in the steady rest with the bottom free for hollowing the inside cone. I left enough wood in the bottom for the faceplate to lag into, for the second round of hollowing the upper section, which of course, also had support from the steady rest. I had the use of a fat boring bar, 1 1/2" diam., with a single inserted HSS toolbit in the end. It took 4-8 hours to do the hollowing, depending on size, pretty slow going.
The outside was left fat until the time came for shaping it, using a system of plywood jam plates setscrewed to a heavy steel arbor held between centers. A bottom plate and top plate, each with a couple large notches cut out to allow the calipers to check wall thickness.
Here's my personal drum, turned from one of the bigger Elm trees on our property that were hit by Dutch Elm disease. It has a 9 1/2" head of goatskin, 20" high and laced with mountain climber's rope. Sounds OK but gets drowned out by bigger drums, at least at the lower frequencies.

 

[Ken Grunke]

Mjonesrdg, that's a fine looking drum you have. The rings look very interesting, are they wood? There is one drawback to how you have them set up on this drum. The traditional djembe's rim is exposed so the hand can directly slap it for the highest pitch sound. And the rim is rounded to avoid injury to the hand. In the traditional playing technique, your arms and hands are like whips cracking, so there's a lot of force. If you ever have a reason to rehead this drum, you could get a slightly larger skin and pull the rings down further for more comfortable playing.

Another tip for the original poster on proportions of the djembe, in case you didn't know: The opening inside the drum at the bowl's bottom should be 1/3 of the rim size, and the bottom opening of the horn 1/2 of the rim. This is all inner diameter. The inside opening, or venturi, is about halfway the length of the drum. No need to get critical here, it's not rocket science and there's room for experimentation.

One theory my friend subscribed to was that having a rough interior makes for better sound. Too smooth, and it rings with unpleasant overtones. Never did any controlled experiments on that, however.

 

[Mjonesrdg]

The skin and the rim

Ken,

I know that you are correct re the rim exposure being short. The 18" dia. skin was the largest that I could google up, but I have since learned that larger skins can be ordered that are not pre-cut.

I made the rings out of white oak, the cordage, alpine (no stretch).