by Snake » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:33 pm
I ran into a problem with making a ring for the cowhide. I had to get some 5/16 diameter hot rolled steel rod and now I need to get over to Harbor Freight and get a ring roller so I can get them round and flat. I also need to find a Mig welder that I can borrow so I can weld up some rings. I sold all of my welding equipment when we moved into this house so I'm at a work stoppage until Wednesday.
If you are trying to do this yourself, make sure that you only heat the plastic up to around 250 degrees. Only heat the bottom 50% of the sewer pipe since you want to preserve the top 30% as perfectly round to accomodate the hardware and have something that looks professional. REmember that the heat will migrate up the pipe from the hot end to the cool end so even if you want to form more then 50% of the tube, don't heat more than 50% of it or the top will go out of round and the only way to fix it is to start over and heat the whole thing and then set it upright. If you don't put the thing in a mold, it will return to it's original round shape. Or use wooden circles cut out to make a tight fit inside the top 30% of the tube so it holds it's round even if heated.
Also, if I buy the welder, I'll just produce my own mounting plates and use traditional threaded hooks like LP, Pearl and Timba. The turnbuckles are better functionally but they look kind of "Tim Allen - Home Improvement - overkill" and if I'm going to do this I want them to look good.
The stands that I spoke of are very functional but unfortunatly they also give the drums the look like a plumber playing out after working all day plumbing a shopping mall. The drums look much better left as just molded plastic and then set into a basket to get it off the floor 3 or 4 inches.
As soon as I get a good looking finished set of these things done I will post pictures so you can see if this is for you or if it's junkyard nonsense. I do want to put my best effort out to all to see though because when I had the Evans Synthetic heads on them, they sounded good enough to the musicians around here that they want sets for themselves. You all won't have the benefit of hearing them before you build them so I at least want to give the idea a fair shake with you by posting a well refined effort.
Snake