congaplace.com

I was looking at the PM Percussion web page and noticed a new line of congas made with recycled wine oak barrels. Caught my eye because I have long heard that submerged wood is an ideal tone wood. So putting these two concepts together is very interesting. This forum has always suggested that older wood, the "in the day" woods were superior to present day woods used for even the artisan conga makers of today.

The wine barrel oak woods are certainly not ancient submerged woods however there are some similarities. The thought of a 2-3 year old red wine soaked oak stave made into a conga and the tonal qualities that may come from such wood leads me to think of a valuable resource of tonal wood. Even taking this further are the fine Sherries and scotch malt whisky barrels for which even sit longer to maturation, not to forget about the American bourbon industry barrels however some are indeed charred. Okay so maybe some of these woods will fill a living room with the bouquet of what it held---but a fresh conga head is not exactly bouquet neutral.

Check out the PM site. I think Peter may have found upon something most unique--and he makes congas in the Napa area.

http://www.pmpercussion.com/finished-products.html

The original congas were usually made out of recycle rum barrels or herring barrels, for a while CR was making recycled congas rom rum barrels in the DR, so while intereting not necessarily a "new" concept. Nice looking drums though.
PC

Yeah I forgot about that little bit of history--thanks. Wonder if a rum soaked oak barrel turned into a modern day conga would sound better than standard dry oak. Hmmm think I will have a rum and coke tonight after the commute.

....marcus

The CR drums sounded fine, the hardware was just crappy. I thinkt he bigger difference is probably the fact that the barrels are quarter saen oak, different grain pattern than flat sawn. A cuba libre does sound good right about now!
PC

Rhythm Traders facebook page shows that they have some examples of PM Percussion wine barrel congas on the floor. Have not talked with them but wondering if any west coast people have visited RT recently and played them.

....marcus

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rhythm-Tr ... =1&theater

While the "cool factor" is very high for making congas out of wine barrels - I'd even like to try it myself one day, the amount of work and the cost of crafting something that looks nice and plays well would be prohibitive for most people. One thing I know for a fact is that working with wood that is saturated with crystallized sugars and acids and other compounds that are byproducts of wine making is extremely hard on cutting tools. If you have a nice $140 table saw blade (if you go that route) or $75 to $100 router bit, you might as well buy a second one to use while your other one is getting sharpened. Band saw? Sure, slower speed is easier on the blade but the cut is too rough to make a nice glue line.

For a straight taper like an ashiko, bongo or flower pot, that's easy. As far as making a barrel shape into a conga shape, that's another story. A jig of some sort would be necessary which will hold the stave as you feed it into the saw/router to cut the taper while maintaining the angle of each of the joining surfaces. I would probably buy a few barrels to experiment with before setting everything up for final production. And this is just for the woodwork. The metalwork is another major undertaking - unless you have a well equipped shop that is. Or you could do what I did and buy sets of hardware from an established manufacturer or supplier. As for the steel bands, it would be nice to be able to keep them, but oh so difficult to rework into the new shape and keep the patina at the same time. I'm not saying it's impossible, just expensive and time time consuming. If one was to make a few sets once he's mastered the calculations and tooling then go for it! It would probably take several being sold to cover costs, much less make a profit.

It's not easy selling niche items like these though - especially in today's economy. And few consumers have any understanding or appreciation of fine craftsmanship and will always complain about the price and see things that they think are defects which aren't, and they wouldn't even know a real defect if it was right in front of them!

That being said, once everything in my life gets back to "normal" again, this has been one of my dream projects for a couple of years, I will eventually take it on.

As a prior post stated not a new concept but a good and sound one. Junior Tirado made some here is a photo of his #5 drum made of recycled barrel, and a photo of a more recent set of bongo from Dominican Rep. also from reclaimed rum barrel. Guitar luthiers have understood for ages that older tone woods are more resonant and stable than kiln dried wood. In Spain when an older building is demolished the first thing to be sold are the solid wood doors luthiers then recylcle them in to lumber for guitars which are highly prized.

Chupacabra wrote:
...
As far as making a barrel shape into a conga shape, that's another story. A jig of some sort would be necessary which will hold the stave as you feed it into the saw/router to cut the taper while maintaining the angle of each of the joining surfaces.
...
That being said, once everything in my life gets back to "normal" again, this has been one of my dream projects for a couple of years, I will eventually take it on.

you gotta remember, that the staves of a barrel (made by a proper cooper) are generally unequal in width, many different sizes which will affect the bevel angle for each one, and they are not exact, that's why they swell the wood after hooping them together. when you make a drum out of a barrel, you have to think about the size you want and see if the barrel has the correct amount of staves that are wider than your planned stave size (dependent on the number and the projected size of the drum, where it is smartest to have a plan before purchasing the barrel so you can see that the one your purchasing is right for the project). your gonna want to have the drums staves equal, so you cut them out of the other slats and make a new and accurate bevel edge, dont aim to keep the old bevel as it wont work since you are changing the drum size.
it seems like a great project

I had always thought the same thing about the staves being the same size, I think the bevel is what is important and the taper for the size. I have the Junior Tirado and a Requena conga from the 50's and both have different size staves. The Junior has less but the older Cuban Requena has more since it also was made from reclaimed lumber. 99% of table saws allow you to set the angle of the cut by degree, the taper would give you a challange narrow on top and bottom thicker in the center but this also can be overcome with guide piece of wood. This is how I have seen Coopers and drum makers do it. I remember watching a drum maker hand plane the last stave to fit a drum, he called the last stave "La LLave" which translates into the key. But of course this a long time ago when drum makers worked with basic tools in thier basments. Here are a couple of more photos so maybe you can see the difference in stave size.

docarroyo wrote:I had always thought the same thing about the staves being the same size, I think the bevel is what is important and the taper for the size.

Yes, these are two of the ultimate factors that determine the shape and size of the shell, I think the shape and radii of the stave is also a major factor to consider. With a wine barrel I can't see how it would be possible to try to to get a fat-bellied conga shape. But then I look back at the photo of the (what looks like) super-tumba and there goes that theory... She looks like the Octo-Mom of congas!

docarroyo wrote:99% of table saws allow you to set the angle of the cut by degree, the taper would give you a challange narrow on top and bottom thicker in the center but this also can be overcome with guide piece of wood.

Yes, this is true, but after further thought since my last postI soon realized that a table saw can't be used for this operation even with the blade canted to the bevel angle. Remember, we are cutting a compound angle out of an arc. Table saws don't do arcs - especially ones with compound angles! The diameter of the blade is too long and it would just chew up the whole stave and probably cause it to kick-back.The only way that I can think of to cut each stave is to rough it with a bandsaw using as narrow a blade as possible and then do a finish cut using a hand plane or, if you have a router with a table and fence and take very light cuts you could safely finish each edge.

With all this said and done, the guys who used to make congas out of fish barrels and so on were doing this a long time ago and it would be safe to say without any power tools at their disposal. Those were the days where if you wanted something you had to make it yourself! All of those wonderful skills and hundreds of others are a dying art - just like authentic music. Few people left to pass the torch and fewer people to carry it.

And that is one nice looking tumbadora shell! And that's made out of a wine barrel, eh? Nice work indeed!

docarroyo wrote:99% of table saws allow you to set the angle of the cut by degree, the taper would give you a challange narrow on top and bottom thicker in the center but this also can be overcome with guide piece of wood.

true, i make my drums on a table saw, and i have used a guide piece for all of them, yesterday, i finally made a proper jig while cutting the staves for my first Honduran Mahogany project yesterday. all of the drums made on it will be the same as that one from yesterday. for each size, i will need to make a new pair of jigs

Chupacabra wrote:Yes, this is true, but after further thought since my last postI soon realized that a table saw can't be used for this operation even with the blade canted to the bevel angle. Remember, we are cutting a compound angle out of an arc. Table saws don't do arcs - especially ones with compound angles! The diameter of the blade is too long and it would just chew up the whole stave and probably cause it to kick-back.The only way that I can think of to cut each stave is to rough it with a bandsaw using as narrow a blade as possible and then do a finish cut using a hand plane or, if you have a router with a table and fence and take very light cuts you could safely finish each edge.

i have limited equipment. i have been able to make the congas and atabaques without routing the fattest part of the stave, even though it would allow me to make rounder bellied congas, something i want to be able to offer eventually. but my point is that you do not have to cut compound angles or arcs to make a drum.



my name is in the middle of the stave, where the straight edges come to the widest section of the stave. if i had a router i would make a jig to smoothly round out the middle for a rounder belly

Chupacabra wrote:

docarroyo wrote:I had always thought the same thing about the staves being the same size, I think the bevel is what is important and the taper for the size.

the hand carved staves can be of different sizes, but its gonna have slightly different bevel angles from stave to stave to help compensate for the difference in stave size (my point made with "la llave"). the bevels need to be the same if the staves are the same size.

Yes, of course you can use a table saw when you are making straight cuts on a flat piece of wood, and you can even cut curves and radii (such as with corner moulding and baseboard) using a table saw using some advanced techniques. I've seen it done before. But we are talking about turning wine barrels into congas. The staves are already curved, arced and bevelled on both sides. I don't believe it is possible to alter them in any useful way on a table saw.

I'm just curious... If you don't mind me asking, how much do you pay for your Honduras Mahogany out there in Arizona?

dende wrote:true, i make my drums on a table saw, and i have used a guide piece for all of them, yesterday, i finally made a proper jig while cutting the staves for my first Honduran Mahogany project yesterday. all of the drums made on it will be the same as that one from yesterday. for each size, i will need to make a new pair of jigs

This is awesome! Great work. I've always dreamt of making a drum from an oak wine barrel. We have so many of these barrels here in my part of California.

Chupacabra wrote:Yes, of course you can use a table saw when you are making straight cuts on a flat piece of wood, and you can even cut curves and radii (such as with corner moulding and baseboard) using a table saw using some advanced techniques. I've seen it done before. But we are talking about turning wine barrels into congas. The staves are already curved, arced and bevelled on both sides. I don't believe it is possible to alter them in any useful way on a table saw.

These guys do it, the video doesn't show them using the saw, but you can see the fresh cuts on the staves at 3:22, and of course the bomba has a smaller diameter than the barrel originally did. These guys make it look easy don't they?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDjMOtWLAM

Not too long ago our own tamboricua completed a project using oak barrels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E4G8lsAquc&NR=1