by Marcus » Thu Sep 18, 2014 3:15 am
Hey Mangorockfish,
I really can not tell you whether your Patatos will sound better with new skins. I reheaded my congas and am very pleased with the outcome. They sound great with new steer skins. I did have some reasonable experience reheading Djembes and Bougarabous and found that effort very valuable. Doing it on your own for the first time is indeed a task-and steer skins are running $60 plus shipping or even more. If you make a mistake, and sorry to say that you probibly will, then you are out the $ and the time. Very frustrating but indeed worth the effort and time. I made plenty of mistakes and was not happy with some results so I did it again. Cost a bit of money but I fugured the experience is worth the costs and the costs were worth the experience. Also the time spent is time away from playing so you really need to want to do this.
There are so many threads on the forum about reheading, read them all. And a thicker skin is not necessarily better. I went too thick on some drums and it muted the tones too much. Also some skin sellers do offer some advise, if they are familiar with the drum and what can make it sound better. But if they sound good already then why go through this effort. You need some tools, I made temporary lugs from long eye bolts which was the saving feature of my efforts as I was able to use the longer bolt threads to gradually tighten the crown while keeping everything reasonably level and even.
good luck