congaplace.com

Found a nice set at a reasonable price on e-bay, beautifully refinished. Unfortunately the tumba cracked on the way here, so I gotta do some repair. Reached a deal with the seller so if I can get the work done my self I'll have a nice pair for less than 400. Not the best with repairs but it's summer and if I'm patient I might be able to do a halfway decent job. The quinto (11) is a giovanni and the tumba is an old galaxy, 1993 so 20 years old. I'd really like to salvage this drum if possible.


Drums, cracked conga 034 by pcastag, on Flickr



Drums, cracked conga 032 by pcastag, on Flickr


Drums, cracked conga 031 by pcastag, on Flickr

Dang brother - it must be hot there!

Did they get overheated in shipping or something?

There is a good chance the tumba made in 1993 is
white oak while the Gio quinto the usual ash. You
know those look familiar I think a forum member'
posted pictures of them drums here in the forum
some years back after he refinished them. Good
luck with the repairs.

Those tubs will fix right up, with a little TLC. Depending on how far you intend to go with a restoration. I wrote a little "how to" article here called " poor mans guide to conga restoration" in it you will see a number of possibilities depending on how far you want or need to go. Those are clean splits, so, they will glue up nearly invisible.

Wow! Who was the shipper? Any company that can crack an LP needs to be avoided.

roberthelpus wrote:Wow! Who was the shipper? Any company that can crack an LP needs to be avoided.

Unless it was already cracked.

The OP wrote that it was damaged in transit.

There are lots of horror stories in the guitar community about guitars being badly trashed by all of the major companies. So far I've been lucky in that regard.

Then there's the TSA agent who dropped a friends favorite Taylor guitar on the floor. The TSA, so far, has denied his claim in spite of a local U.S. Senator prodding them.

Yeah, I got pics of the drums before, definitely happened in shipping. All the cracks are right on the gluelines and apparantly these old Galalxies are notorious for that. Hoping I can do a nice job fixing them, the 11 sounds awesome, and the colors match my wine red moperc almost perfectly.

They were insured...right?

Yeah, still waiting for UPS to come by and inspect the packaging. I bought the two pairs for 625 shipped, seller gave me back 250 for the damage so for 375 I got a perfect quinto and a tumba I can fix. Good deal for some giovannis I thought, worked out pretty well in the end as I'm not too particular about looks. The 11" sounds bad ass with the nuskin head..

You will be ok. Like somebody else said to fix the cracks
is pretty much straightforward. Now I am wondering about
the Galaxy tumba. Is the shape the same as the Gio quinto?
If remember correctly the first wood Galaxy drums shape
was the same as the LP classics plus they were made from
white oak at some point in the late 90's when they became
Gio's the shape became taper and the wood ash.

It definitely has the older classic shape, the Gino has the higher belly with the more defined taper.

You don't see the older Galaxy drums that often.
Good luck with the repairs.