goatskins.com Blog

If you have soaked a skin or hide and do not have time to put it on the drum on the same day try freezing it. If a skin is left soaking too long it will deteriorate. You can soak the skin and put it in a plastic bag (freezer zipper bag) and then in the freezer until you are ready to use it. When ready to use it just re-soak it until it is defrosted. Voila soft skin ready for heading.

To fix a crack in a wooden drum shell, you will need a drill with a 1/4″ bit, white or wood glue, sand paper, chisel, hammer, and a 1/4″ oak dowel. You will start from the rim or the bottom of the drum (depending on where the crack is).  Drill a hole at an angle and across the crack. Put the glue in the hole and on the dowel. Drive the dowel into the hole, cut the dowel off level with the drum, and smooth it with sandpaper or a chisel. You can color it with some stain or wood putty. The cracks usually do not show and do not affect the quality of the drum’s sound.  

It’s a good idea to put a coat of wax on the rim of the drum before you apply a new head. The wax will protect the wood from the moisture left on the skin from soaking and will prevent the skins from sticking to the wood.

I get a lot of questions about the rim of the drum, or bearing edge. This is an important part of the drum shell. Done incorrectly it can cause a vibration that could drive you crazy trying to figure out what it is, at least it drove me crazy the first time it happened to me. The vibration noise is due to a flat spot on the rim of the shell. What is happening is that the skin left bearing edge but then retouches again and starts to make the noise or vibration. There really is only on way to fix it, take the head off and fix the flat spot. When I first started out I was told the rim should look like a side view of your thumb. The finger nail side would be the inside of the drum and the skin (or palm side) would be the outside. That analogy really does work.

One more tip on the rim is if you want the plane of the top of the drum to be flat I have found the best way to get it that way is to glue sandpaper to a flat surface and rub the drum over that surface. It takes a little elbow grease but it is worth it in the long run. I actually use a belt sander to shape the rim but the first thing I will do is get the rim a little pointed so when I do flatten the top of the drum It sands easier. The more I flatten it, and wider the flat spot becomes, the harder it is to sand. I will reshape the rim again and make the top where I have been sanding pointed again until I finally get it flat. I use a piece of glass to gauge the flatness. You actually can tell when it is flat by looking at where you have been sanding and if the sandpaper touches all surfaces, then it has to be flat. If you do not have access to a flat surface and sandpaper, there is the old concrete driveway. I have turned a drum upside and rubbed it back and forth on my driveway, it works but you need to make sure the concrete is flat by using a straight edge in the place where you will rubbing the drum.

When finally finished sanding the surface, you have to get that rounded side view of your thumb look again on the rim. If you had to take the head off to fix the rim there is no need to re-soak the head, you can put the head back on dry, tighten the verticals, put your diamonds in and start playing.

To know the how long you need to cut the rope for the two loops rings you measure the circumfrence of the rings. I wrap the rope around the outside of the top ring. I use 4.25 times the cirumfrence of the top ring and 5.5 times the cirumfrence for the bottom ring. This will give you extra rope on the rings using a two finger spacing for the loops. It is better to have one foot or more extra then to be half an inch short. When i say two finger spacing, that is for the top ring only, the bottom loops will be closer then two fingers. I always do the top ring first. Count the number of loops. As I tie the loops on the bottom ring I pay attention to how many loops I have as I go around the ring counting the number as I reach each quarter of the ring. If the top ring has 24 loops I should have 6 loops after reaching the first quarter of the ring and 12 loops at the halfway point. You can adjust your spacing accordingly.