Thanks for the comments and feedback.
These staves are cut and beveled, not steam bent. I actually do them in sections, so the yellow heart rings go all the way through. This way I use straight face grain and everything stays very stable. So this drum was a total of 2 little drums and 3 accent rings (yellow - walnut - yellow)
RitmoBoricua wrote:Beautiful work on that drum, that walnut is something else.
You do great work on them djembes.
http://www.rhythmhousedrums.com/Have you ever made a full blown conga with hardware? A full blown conga
made out of walnut would be something real special. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much. One is in the works. This was a mini version, sort of a tester. I'm hoping to team up with Manito Percussion for some top quality stainless hardware. I'd like to do at least one full set with my design and see how it goes. Just have to get caught up on paid drums before I can play with projects
But I did have a lot of fun with this build, and have the steer mounted now. I would have liked the rings just a tad lower, but I'm very happy with it. I'll get some final photos and hopefully a sound clip / video up here as soon as the hide drys out and I do a final tune up.
Thanks for the input Marcus. I don't know a lot about congas, but I'm learning. I've worked a lot with different hides on djembe / ashiko / dunun drums, and I have a shop built mechanical puller that gives way more leverage than needed to pull this down if I run into issues. The rings on this conga were just a tad too tight so the they didn't come down as far as I wanted, but are about as far down as they would have been for an ashiko, and playing the drum, I dont hit my hands... so it's all good. But yes, this skin is thick, I'd say at least 1/8" .. about 3mm I guess.
Stay tuned...