by jorge » Thu Oct 11, 2018 10:23 pm
We would be interested in what Martin Cohen says, although even if he can tell you the type of wood, I don't think that will affect your choice of glue to use for the repair. I have had good experience fixing cracked wood conga and bongo shells of a variety of woods (oak, cherry, ash, mahogany, majagua but not yet rubberwood/Siam oak) using Titebond glue. I prefer the original Titebond, which is harder, less flexible and less likely to "creep" under shear force than Titebond II and III. Titebond II and III offer better water resistance at the expense of being more flexible and sometimes allowing the 2 sides of the repaired crack to slide very slightly when the force from the tightened lugs pulls out on one stave relative to the next one. This is usually much less than 1 mm but you may be able to feel or see the edge.
I used to use epoxy but Jay Bereck who made Skin on Skin drums told me many years ago he liked the wood glues better than epoxy and I switched. None of the few repairs I did over 30 years ago with epoxy have re-cracked, but this was only a few cracks on 2 congas and 1 bongo so the numbers are too small to say with confidence that epoxy will withstand the test of time. The mahogany bongo did crack again in different places but the repaired crack lines did not re-crack.
Titebond would probably work well for any of the different woods, ash, rubberwood, multi-ply, oak that may have been used in early Galaxy drums, I am not aware of differences among these woods that would change your choice of glue. I know there have been some professional woodworkers on this forum in the past who have a lot more woodworking experience than I, so try searching old discussions, but I don't remember any disagreements with using Titebond.