Stave-up Vergara restoration - Saving a basket-case drum.

[Zeno]

Rather than try to slip glue between the stave cracks on this old Cuban Vergara conga, I decided to do it right and broke the whole drum down to the individual oak staves, mostly it just fell apart when I removed the hoops. Now I can properly scrape off the old dried-out original casein glue, probably incompatible with the new glue to be used. The new yellow carpenter's glue would not properly bond with this old glue in place on the surface of the oak. You do not want to sand or even scrape with improper tools otherwise you will upset the surface for the new bond or worse create undesirable gaps in the smooth seam between staves. I will contact a woodworker friend for the proper old scraping tool to get the old glue off without disturbing the integrity of the bonding surfaces. Then I will have to reassemble the staves from scratch. That will be interesting. Anyone done that before? I have already remanufactured the missing bottom barrel hoop by cutting out a paper template and then transferring to some steel which I have cut and riveted together. It has the proper taper which is most radical on the bottom end. Getting the bottom end staves together for gluing seems like the crux of this project. I have now realized that the hoops are necessary for tightening the shell during gluing. For this reason I will paint the shell afterwards, which means the stainless steel hoops will have to be taped off while applying lacquer to the shell. I have not decided what color yet. The original was black. The other missing stainless hoop I may have to have manufactured by one of the pro drum makers.

PS. just picked up the special scraping tools.

Zeno

In The Pursuit Of Tradition - Artículo Breve
Latin Beat Magazine, Nov, 2000 by Rudy Mangual

On January 4, 1999, Timba, Inc. opened its doors to the world of Afro-Caribbean percussion instruments. Its first production was made available five months later in June. Timba produces conga drums, bongos, tamboras and claves. Their conga drums are fabricated from specifications of original drums designed by Gonzalo Vergara of Havana, Cuba. From the late forties to the early fifties Vergara craftsmanship gained recognition for producing some of the first tunable conga drums anywhere. Their unique shape and crisp sound rapidly made them the choice instruments of the period. With no type of commercial distribution available out of the island, to purchase Vergara conga drums was a difficult task. Every time one of New York's resident Cuban percussionists made a trip back home to visit their families, they would bring back Vergara instruments for their fellow musician friends. Eventually, many popular New York musicians ended up with the unique drums from Cuba. After the trade embargo between Cuba and the United States in the sixties, the flow of travel between both countries diminished, bringing an end to acquisition of Vergara products. Perhaps some of the last Vergara instruments to reach El Norte were brought in by percussionist Mongo Santamaría in December 1959.



Edited By Zeno on 1142643037