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thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 7:23 pm
by godskin
Hi there congueros and gongueras. I a newbie in this world of playing conga.
I recently bought some conga’s and I am have started to play a bit. In a future topic I will show them.

Last week I came back from a trip to brazil where I was a participant in several Umbanda rituals where atabaques where played.
I was given the opportunity to play in the rituals and of course I did !!
I also had some lessons in the basics of Afro Brazilian playing style in umbanda.
I brought a beautiful atabaque back home. It looks great but I did not like the sound. I will re-skin it because the skin was just to thin.

I looked around the forum and I see there is a lot of knowledge and I am looking for some help.
I have searched for an answer to my question and I found similar subjects but not the answer I am looking for.

There is somebody who can make me some extra flesh rings for my conga’s. For this I need to give him a thickness of the steel
The problem is I cant measure the thickness of the steel of my rings because the skin is around it.
What is the average thickness of steel on a flesh ring (hoop) ?


See you around, Godskin

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 9:42 pm
by Marcus
I have worked with Drunskulls and Manito Percussion. I think Manito makes stainless flesh rings and Drumskulls are cold rolled steel. I have Drumskulls for my congas and the welds are very strong. Manito's are also perfect however I heard that the stainless is a bit more in costs. Rings are cheap so get what you want.

...marcus

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 9:59 pm
by RitmoBoricua
Welcome, good place to learn a thing or two.

godskin wrote:Hi there congueros and gongueras.


Congueras not gongueras.

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 10:40 pm
by bongosnotbombs
Latinrhythm Traders in portland sells flesh hoops of all sizes and are not expensive. I've used them.

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 11:46 pm
by roberthelpus
I still don't get why you would use cold rolled steel which is strengthened by working (work hardening) it but will be weakened by welding in the HAZ (Heat Affected Zone.) I made some rings when I had welding equipment out of garden variety hardware store rods (mild steel) for a friend. He didn't really know anything about metals but wanted cold rolled. I hung my full weight and swung around a little on a small diameter sample ring of 5/16" section with no deformation and he was happy. Those were for djembes and ashikos with Mali weave rope tuning. That was years ago and it hasn't come back.

It sure is nicer for my little Harbor Freight ring roller.

Look how the stresses act on a conga or bongo flesh ring. Pretty evenly spread out. The rims would have to be bent first before there would be any real concentrated stress points on it in the horizontal direction. I can't see where there would be a lot of force trying to pull the weld apart either. In some ways the skin might actually add to the rings strength.

Stainless is always nice but more costly to purchase and more costly to weld. Once the skin is installed where is the moisture to rust a regular carbon steel ring?

The OP is asking for flesh ring cross section diameter. I'd say 1/8" to 1/4". Around 3 to 6 mm.

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 5:38 pm
by godskin
Of course, congueras is the correct spelling, my typo.

Thanks for the responses, specially roberthelpus.
I live in Europe so will have to get my rings locally.
5 to 6 mm seems good for me, and indeed regular steel might just be good enough, I don’t have high humidity around here.

At Latinrhythm Traders I found this information about steel rings:

Made from 1/4" steel, ranging from 6" to 16.5" in diameter in 1/2" increments (1/4" increments between 8" and 15"), our steel rings work great for a variety of projects and drum builds.

http://www.rhythmtraders.com/African-Dr ... s-p34.html

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2013 9:15 pm
by Marcus
PS

Regardless of where you get your rings, make sure you inspect the welds very carefully. I do not want to mention any names but I have received rings that either have very rough welds with sharp edges or the welds were not quite complete leaving a bit of a gap where I acutally saw light through the weld. Be a crying shame to mount a high quality skin and have the flesh ring break at the weld. :cry:

good reheading, marcus

Re: thickness of flesh ring (mm)

PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2013 10:14 pm
by roberthelpus
Stainless steel if not welded properly will rust in the joint area. It is also possible to contaminate it with post welding treatment (grinding, wire brushing, etc.) as well.