Lines in Bongo skin?

[The_Faniatic]

Hi All,

I've been playing timbales for a while and I just got my first bongo (LP Giovanni Galaxy). I bought used and the skins have some lines in them, a few are kind of deep. (Please see the attached image.)

Should I be worried that these will quickly develop into tears or do these skins still look like they have plenty of life in them? As I'm a newbie, I have no idea how to assess the remaining life of heads and I just want to know whether I should order new replacement skins right away to have on hand.

Thanks!

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi Faniatic,

without guarantee - but this skin looks pretty normal to me. I had to face a surprise sometimes, but in this case I don't see any necessity to carry a spare head along. Especially because it seems to be the larger hembra, where the tension is not as extreme as on the macho. If the macho head is rather thin and the angle of the collar over the edges sharp, it may be advisable to bring a replacement head to the gig, perhaps plastic.

Thomas

[The_Faniatic]

Thanks for the reply, Thomas! That helps.

[Juaort]

Hi Faniatic. I agree with Thomas. I’ve seen this on LP stock heads before. You should be good to go.

Best,

Juaort

[The_Faniatic]

Thanks for confirming, Juaort!

[Psych1]

Yeah, they'll probably last for years. But, that is not really such good news because LP stock water buffalo skins are not all that great. If you want to up your game. get better skins. Check all the old posts here for reccomendations.