Project Stave Snare Drum, 13 x 5.5 [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 9:32 PM

Hi,

I've posted 2 completed snare drums, and today, I'm starting another. This time, I'm going to tell a much longer story. It will take some number of weekends from this point forward to finish the story.

How many of you would like to receive free, 200 year old, highly figured sugar maple in the mail? Sounds too good to be true. In exchange for sending one of my stave shells to a member of a drum forum, he sent back this box full of charm as "rental payment." I should rent my drums more often!

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Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Or so the expression goes. The blocks were too narrow for anything but a 10" diameter drum, and lacking a No. 6000 Lie-Veritas PowerDelta Wood Stretching mechanism, I just glued some walnut stripes to one edge to fatten the width.

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I needed quite a bit of time to run each block through my router table equipped with a 11.25 degree chamfer bit, but with the angle dialed in and the width of each block at 2.60" exactly, I've glued up a 13.125" diameter x 6" tall drum blank.

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Using one of my gizmos to safely edge a ragged-edge blank, the blank is now 5.5" tall, and the edges are 90 degrees to the face and co-planer to each other.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 9:46 PM

So....let's turn this shell!

If you've seen my other stave drum posts, I've not gone into much detail about how I do it. Today, I photo-document my turning process.

Barbell for a weakling? Guilty as charged. No, it's the heart of my whole drum lathe. A central axle pierces two MDF disks. The axle is precision 1" aluminum flagpole tubing.

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Perhaps it looks like a kludge, but it works. Some fat head screws press the shaft collar tight to the disk. Some brass shims in the right place makes the MDF disk as close to 90 degrees to the shaft as possible. I know, there are lotsa holes there, but the important part are the holes labeled OK...All Thread goes through these holes, keep reading...

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It's woodworking, not metal working! .000" is great, but a few thou off here or there won't cause any harm. In this shot, I'm pretty darn close.

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The drum shell is positioned

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The other disk is installed onto the shaft

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Some All-Thread

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Inserted through 3 holes, each 120 degrees from each other. Make the nuts finger tight.

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All done. Ready for the next step.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 9:55 PM

The central axle is right and true. Even if it ain't, it is, since all things spinny revolve around it. The job here is to get the shell as centered as possible. The reason is wall thickness - I'll be turning the inside of the shell later on, and if I do a good job centering the shell, I'll have lots of wall thickness later on, to determine how much I want to lathe away.

Did you know if you remove the router from your router table, you have a nice, big hole in which to drop a long tube into?

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Like so.

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View from the top, the job is to best center the shell.

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Eyeballing is good, but a Lee Valley caliper used in depth mode is better. Generally, the distance from the edge of the shell to the disk was about .43", give or take, measured at NSEW compass points, on both sides of the shell. If I was off by .01" at any point, that's fine.

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This picture shows the final steps. Lock the disks to the axle, tighten the nuts on the All Thread. The shell ain't moving from this spot.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 10:15 PM

What follows is the fussiest part of my whole work flow. Done right, turning is a breeze.

If the axle and disk are the heart of my turning jig, the stands are the body. Simple book-ends, but there is a plate with 2 precision bearings very close to each other, and they cradle the axle. The plates are bolted to allow infinite adjustment vertically, giving my jig a general capacity of 10" - 26" diameter. Yes, 13" of swing!

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Clearly, with the axle sitting on both sets of bearings, the shell is a little tippy.

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On the stand where the drum is higher, I simply loosen two bolts holding the plate, and tap, tap, tap.

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Pretty good, and this is eyeballed. (Some of you already have a notion in your mind. Keep that thought.)

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Just a top-down view of the axle cradled by the bearings. If there was only a way to lock that axle into place, to prevent it from lifting or shifting.

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Skateboard wheels. All they have to do is press down. They are mounted on their own plate.

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Some steel angle, and I've installed UHMW slick tape. Some aluminum angle is epoxied onto the steel angle, and I just screw down into the stand. (Some of you have another notion, related to that first notion. Just keep it to yourself for now.)

The distance between the tabs allow for making drums from 4" tall to about 10" tall. That means I only need one setting for all of my snare drums.

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One step not photo'd, but important anyway. After I edged the drum, I marked some Stop Cutting lines. As mentioned, the rough blank is 13.125". Why? Because a shell is 1/8" undersized from nominal. This 13" shell will actually be 12 7/8" diameter, when finished. Why? Because commercially available drum heads are themselves the nominal size, so the drum shell needs to be a bit smaller to fit inside the metal hoop to which the plastic drum head is bonded.

So...I measured in from the edge of my shell 1/8", and 180 degrees from that line, did it again. Measuring the gap, I verified 12 7/8" between the marks. This is one of the marks on the right side of the drum....

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 10:24 PM

...and this is the Stop Cutting line on the left side of the shell.

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Mount the router on the rails (that aluminum plate slides really nice on the UHMW slick tape!) and make darn sure the router remains unplugged for this next step!

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Extend the router bit until it touches one of the Stop Cutting lines on one side of the shell.

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Move the router to the other side of the shell, and check it against a Stop Cutting line there. I'm really close, but not entirely 100% precise to the line. Adjust the bearing plates if needed to get yourself really close. You don't have to be exactly on. (Stop nagging, I know, I know. Don't worry, it'll be OK.)

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Here, I attach my hand-crank. Not pictured, but I've clamped the stands to the table, and added a few cross braces to stiffen the works up. You'll see those annoying metal braces later.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 10:35 PM

Time to turn, which is what you all paid your admission to see.

I set a depth of cut that juuuust removes the peaks of the miters and an ephemeral amount of the flats. For the advanced wood workers, is this a climbing cut, and if so, why?

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Some more action shots of the first bit of lathing. The pink is rosin paper, which I've taped to the router base plate to act as shrouding for the chips that are flung from the bit.

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All done with the first round of cutting. Note the mess that it makes.

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A close up. All in all, the cut quality isn't too bad. Do you like the figure? Sweet, huh?

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So....all that side conversation. This is what that was about. Here is a flexible sewing tape showing the circumference of the right side of the shell.

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Here's the left side. Not bad for eyeballing, right? But, I can do better, and for a number of reasons including crafter's pride, I want to eliminate any taper. How do I do it?

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Easy. Shim the side with the smaller diameter. Two bits of .007" under each track. See? I told you it would be OK.

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Keep track of the Stop Cutting lines. I have plenty of meat left.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 10:51 PM

Let's take another round of cutting, and check the circumference again. This is the left, 41" minus...

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and the right. 41" minus ! Hummm, baby! That's pretty good. No more taper.

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The arrow is my real Stop Cutting line, the little one is to be ignored. Keep cutting until you reach the line.

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With the shell still on the lathe, a flat wood block with a cork pad and 120 grit sandpaper wrapped around it makes simple work of removing the machine marks.

You see some of my shop notes written on the metal brace - 39.5, 39 5/8. By calculation, 12.875" x 3.1415926 = 39.51" is the circumference I need. By practice, 39 5/8" is actually the circumference I need. Here's why.

That flexible sewing tape has thickness, 1/64". If I measured 39.5", that would be the circumference on the *outside* of the tape, but the shell is *inside* the tape - and would be under the 12 7/8" target. Ahhh! Didn't think of that, eh? (Actually, I got burned on that very thing.) So, add a 1/16" to the circumference for tape thickness, add another 1/16" for material to be sanded away, and there you go - 1/8" over 39.5, hence, 39 5/8. And I was dead on.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-10-2010, 10:54 PM

I'm done for this weekend, but let's wrap it up.

Here' the shell, ready to be removed from the lathe.

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Lifting away the clamping disk.

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The outside turning is done. Stay tuned for the next installment of this stave drum project. Thanks!

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Salem Ganzhorn

04-11-2010, 12:12 AM

I have read some of your other projects and had no idea what your process was. Only that it produced some seriously cool looking cylinders :).

Thanks for letting us in on your secrets!
Salem

Joe A Faulkner

04-14-2010, 1:24 AM

I've never dreamed of instrument making, but I find this process extremely interesting. Thank you documenting this and sharing it here. I look forward to the next your next post.

Seth Dolcourt

04-14-2010, 9:55 AM

I have read some of your other projects and had no idea what your process was. Only that it produced some seriously cool looking cylinders :).

Thanks for letting us in on your secrets!
Salem

I've never dreamed of instrument making, but I find this process extremely interesting. Thank you documenting this and sharing it here. I look forward to the next your next post.

Hi, guys,

Thanks for your comments.

At its core, instrument making requires many of the same basic steps as furniture - wood selection, wood prep, milling and assembly. Without the elemental woodworking skills, this is a difficult project. Nothing on here is mortise and tenon'd, of course, but the knowledge and practice of all those classic woodworking joints make the formation of a simple but highly accurate long grain bevel that much easier to execute consistently, 32 or 40 times in the case of a 16 or 20 stave shell.

Cheers,

Seth

Jim Becker

04-15-2010, 10:15 PM

Very educational, Seth!

Mark Wyatt

04-16-2010, 2:17 PM

That is pretty wild. Thanks for the post. I'd love to see a video :).

Gerry Grzadzinski

04-16-2010, 5:52 PM

For the advanced wood workers, is this a climbing cut, and if so, why?Depends on which way the drum is turning. If the top is turning away from the camera, then it's a climb cut. The reason being that if the drum were stationary, and you were pulling the router toward the camera, the router would have a tendency to climb along the parts, due to the bit grabbing the wood and pushing the router. With a conventional cut, you're pushing the bit into the wood, so it has not tendency to grab the wood.

Nice job, btw. :)

Seth Dolcourt

04-16-2010, 10:48 PM

Very educational, Seth!

Thank you. I hope I'm at least giving back what I'm taking from SMC; I've seen plenty of good ideas here, thanks to people who openly share.

That is pretty wild. Thanks for the post. I'd love to see a video :).

I've been thinking about it. I have a bunch of little stories I shot about using my edging gizmo, I might break down and buy some video editing software and see if I can stitch it together.

Depends on which way the drum is turning. If the top is turning away from the camera, then it's a climb cut. The reason being that if the drum were stationary, and you were pulling the router toward the camera, the router would have a tendency to climb along the parts, due to the bit grabbing the wood and pushing the router. With a conventional cut, you're pushing the bit into the wood, so it has not tendency to grab the wood.

Nice job, btw. :)

Thanks, Gerry. And I'm awarding you full points, for taking a crack at the answer, here's 10 for 10, just for playing the game! :)

Yes, the top is turning away from the camera. It's as simple as I've found that climb cutting reduces tear-out significantly. A 12" diameter walnut drum turned into a hairy dog when taking a conventional cut, so I go with the climb cut.

The depth of cut is 1/16" or less. Any bigger, and the router bit will grab like crazy and have its way with the shell. Bad news! Using a motor drive might tame that tendency; for now, the hand crank gets the job done. I feel so....Roy Underhill.....

Seth Dolcourt

04-18-2010, 10:00 PM

Well, I promised I'd do more work this weekend, and I'm glad to have kept that promise. You know how things go - niece's birthday on Saturday, then I taxi'd my son across town for his friend's birthday, then Saturday became Sunday, and it was a nice, nice SF Bay Area day, so the garden needed its due, and I visited my parents for lunch, went to the electronics store.....but, I finally made it into the shop.

Let's get to work!

My outside-lathe is a sturdy machine, my inside-lathe....we can quibble. It's kludgy. It can be made better. I'm a-thinkin' about it. Suggestions are welcome.

This is a top-down view. Yes, those are skateboard wheels. The heavy, solid wheels are long board wheels, which are of a softer durometer than the smaller, blue wall wheel.

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A side view. The 6 wheels will cradle the outside diameter of the shell.

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One more look, different perspective. By now, I'm sure your mind is piecing together the logic. Good, because I just can't explain it! But I will take questions...

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Close up view of the long board wheel. The stand-off post is 5/16" inside diameter, which slides easily over the M8 bolt. Yes...the ID of a skate bearing is metric. Ya know metric...what the rest of the world uses, but "we" don't. Metric hardware parts are insanely more expensive than SAE. I have no beef with metric, it's a clever measuring system. But I can't get used to 18.2 meters from the pitcher's mound to home plate; 60 ft, 6 in is what I know.

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I totally digressed, I get that way when I think about baseball. (Go, Giants!) Here is a close up of the center wheel. This offers a lot of support to the shell's belly, as the shell flexes quite a bit, even for being such a thick object; as the shell becomes thinner, the flexing is much more pronounced, and the cut quality becomes rough and scalloped shaped. These center wheels are adjusted until they juuuust touch the shell.

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This is the super kludge part of the whole jig. This pulley is the anchor point to which the string is looped. You'll see.

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Yep. I've tied the shell to the jig. The string goes "twang" like a guitar string, so it has some tension to it. The string is good ole cotton line.

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Another view.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-18-2010, 10:18 PM

Time to make sawdust fly. And fly, it will.

Totally forgot to say one thing - the logic of this inside turning rig is to completely rely upon the outside diameter to ensure the inside diameter is concentric to the outside.

This is one of the first cuts. There is another cut on the left side. I can put the calipers on the cuts to determine the wall thickness on both left and right sides. You know the rest....shim the thinner side to raise the router, and keep doing that until the wall thickness is equal on both sides.

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These variable speed Bosch Colts are awesome. They're even more awesome when the store is having a "no sales tax" weekend. Boo-yah! Here is the full jig in action. I can actually fit a PC 7529 inside a 13" drum, but it's a tight fit. Footprint is the killer; the PC has a wider foot than the Colt, which means the rails have to be farther apart, which means the shell has to be lower in the jig as to not knock the rails when being turned, which means the router bit has to be extended further....

Since I'll be turning a 12" shell, in which the PC totally won't fit inside, I set up this jig for use with the Colt, so there will be less adjustments when I mount the 12".

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The next two shots capture the spray of chips around the shop.

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If you're a father, you've probably done this before. String cuts way easier! This marks the end of inside turning, and after removing the rails from the jig, the shell lifts off easily.

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Seth Dolcourt

04-18-2010, 10:19 PM

Voila. Sanding time. But that's a story for next weekend. Thanks!

Seth Dolcourt

04-24-2010, 10:35 PM

Hi,

Some elbow grease with sanding, three coats of boiled linseed oil later, and here it is.

I'll let it cure for a bit, then the finish will be Behlen's sanding sealer and string instrument lacquer.

The third picture is a 12 x 6 walnut stave, 1/2" thick, 16 staves - while the maple/walnut is enjoying a lacquer cure, I'll work on the 12 x 6 and post progress separately; the bed and bearing edge cutting will be done much sooner than on the maple/walnut, and is what converts a shell into a finished drum.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Seth

Seth Dolcourt

05-03-2010, 11:11 PM

Hi,

I'm back again, this time with a hardware update.

My good buddy and woodworking partner-in-crime has turned blacksmith. For the past few months, he's been down at the historic park, heatin' and beatin' steel.

So here is a little project for him - bang some drum lugs out of steel.

I've made some metal forms out of 1/32" copper sheet, trying to get the rough shape and proportion. I like the squiggly lug on the right, but looks like it'll be a beast to make. The lug on the left is certainly simpler. Simple might win out.

The first picture is the model, showing an existing drum shell with the lug. The threaded rod is called a tension rod. They have a square shape on the top, and a drum key has the socket that exactly fits the T rod; twisting the T rod will tighten or loosen the head at that spot.

My design called for the tension rod to engage a barrel nut, the barrel nut is captured in the knuckle of the lug. Two machine screws, one each sitting in the swale of the curly part of the lug, will penetrate the lug and through the shell, anchored with a lock washer and a nut on the inside.

The lugs themselves are a bit shorter than 3 inches, and probably ought to be a tad longer. The tension rod is about 2 inches long, I'd like to use 1 3/8 long T rods. Just a preference, really.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Seth

Seth Dolcourt

05-08-2010, 8:47 PM

Hi,

So today was Spray Day. I shot the inside of the drum with Zinsser shellac, using the rattle can version. Easy, but go light. Drip-a-palooza, otherwise.

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Behlen's vinyl sealer. Dries very quickly. 3 very thin coats are on this shell.

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I'm done fussing around with lug shapes. The winner is in the middle, kind of a hybrid between the two original ideas. Now.....to bang them out of steel. What a story that will be, so stay tuned. As always, thanks for looking.

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Dale Coons

05-08-2010, 9:35 PM

Thanks for sharing!

Mark Crenshaw

05-10-2010, 10:07 AM

Hi Seth.

Beautiful work as always. I really like the maple/walnut combo. Aside from the great looking drums, your jig building skills are top notch. Nice work there, too.

Peace,
Mark

Robby Tacheny

05-14-2010, 2:39 PM

Seth Dolcourt

05-15-2010, 10:52 AM

Thanks for sharing!

Y'elcome. Other crafters have shared their creations to inspire forum members, figured I'd share my passion, too.l

Hi Seth.

Beautiful work as always. I really like the maple/walnut combo. Aside from the great looking drums, your jig building skills are top notch. Nice work there, too.

Peace,
Mark

Thanks, Mark. I've heard from some unattributed place that sculpting is easy, you just knock away the part of the stone you don't want. The jigs are the best way to knock away the parts of the drum wot I don't want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7u6LPwfkPs

This is an oft cited video for drum builders. I don't build the way he does, but a great example of using mostly hand tools and a sharp eye to get what you want.

Cheers,

Seth

Seth Dolcourt

05-15-2010, 11:34 AM

Please don't take offense to my comment, but the first lug shape (with no middle "curl") seems to hold tension the best with the fewest holes in the shell. I don't know how they are supposed to attach, but by having a middle "curl" it seems like you would have to have screws on each side of the curl.

It seems like the one sans the middle curl would work floating or with only only one fastener. Maybe the strength of the steel will hold tension in the other design?? I realize most drum lugs are fastened with two screws but it just seems like less contact might dampen the shell a bit less.

Again I am not trying to argue, just trying to understand the logic a little better. I think your drums are great!

-R

Hi, Robby,

Nah, no worries, man. It's all part of the give and take.

You'd not believe the thunder and rage on various drum forums about lugs. If you thought hand tool v. power tool was the ultimate no-win argument, then you haven't lived through Lug Wars.

The drum shell is most resonant when it's unfinished and undrilled. Suspending it from a finger tip and giving it a tap yields the shell's fundamental pitch. It's no surprise, marimbas are made from tuned wood blocks, so a drum shell's desire to vibrate and yield a note when struck is completely within character of using wood as the musical instrument.

The fight starts when you drill holes in the shell, which is a requirement when building a modern, Western drum. Nothing kills the resonant note of a shell better than drilling a lot of holes and affixing metal mass!

Not only is the number of holes needed to mount a lug a topic of hot debate, but so is the placement. There is a confounding theory called nodal point, which I think is real, but not for drums.

Referring to said marimbas, the screw holes are drilled at the nodal point, because removing material there has no real effect on the note coming from the wood block. See 3:00 or so at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9uZe_nCHCI

The nodal point argument for drums says you drill holes 2/9, or 22.2%, from the bearing edge, because the wave energy - represented as a sine wave - hits zero at the nodal ponts. The drum is a completely different musical animal, because the shell isn't struck to make the note, a tensioned drum head is. I think the nodal point argument for drum building is complete hoo-ey.

Single point lugs can be supplied with two screws for holding strength, but usually when you thing of single point lugs, there is only one screw that cinches the lug to the shell. That is the case of the turret style lug on the cherry/padauk strip shell.

Tube lugs merely connect two single point lugs, and the purpose is strength in an otherwise light weight single point lug - a lug with two screws is simply more capable of handling tension forces than a lug with only one screw. Pictured on the maple piccolo is the classic tube lug.

My squiggly lug is a bastardization of a lug requiring two holes. Yes, the screw holes are supposed to fall in the swale between the center curl and the knuckles. Being made of steel, and having lots of contact with the shell will alter the drum's sound, but compared to what? It's basically not possible to A/B different types of lugs on the same shell to gauge their impact, because you've already altered the shell for the first set of lugs. So it remains an unresolvable conundrum, e.g. Ford v. Chevy.

I go with the theory that wood species, shell thickness, height, diameter, type of drum head, muffling of the head, tuning, bearing edges, and playing environment have more to do with perceived sound of a drum than does nodal points or lug type or lug placement.

Also, the same drum sounds different to the player - who is right on top of it, listening to the top head - versus an audience member, who hears much more of the entirety of the sound coming from the bottom head and snare wires. When captured by a microphone, everyone hears the same thing.

Whew! Who knew, eh, that one simple question would open up a can of philosophical whoop-butt? But that's the fun of it.

Cheers,

Seth

Seth Dolcourt

05-16-2010, 12:53 AM

Well, to get back on track a little bit, here is the very first lug banged out of metal. It's missing the pre-formed slot and curvy waist of the prototype, but the goal of this lug was to determine how feasible the design was.

It'll work! 1/8" thick steel, 3/8" barrel knuckles, and the center hump was created by forming the center over a 5/8" diameter steel bar.

What fun to bang metal at a forge, though it was my buddy doing 99.9% of the work. I was the shop boy, fetching hammers and holding things steady.

A little wire wheel action after the lug was finally quenched in water to remove the scale and other crud that forms when metal is heated. The peening marks are prevalent, and I like the texture.

Hopefully, we'll make the real ones next week.

Until then, thanks for looking.

Seth Dolcourt

05-23-2010, 10:17 AM

Hi,

As I wait, wait, wait for the lacquer, I thought I'd put myself out there and share with you one of the jigs I used to make this project. I finally figured out how to make a video!

Comments are welcome, but then again - when does a woodworker ever have to be invited for an opinion? :)

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve0ppIDKWkU

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijsKjfjECaM

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l9AahDZCg8

Blooper reel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOUF7QxstkI

John Thompson

05-28-2010, 10:18 AM

Good morning Seth.. I had a chance to catch up a bit and just read your thread. I normally don't comment on a thread with musical instruments as I really don't know what to say. I know diddly-squat about the build of any musical instrument but.. you have shown some pretty in-genious jigs here with initial shaping I can possibly use in other areas.

The drum is shaping up to look great and I notice you have built a few in the past so... kudo's for taking on musical instruments which I consider a unique form of the craft we refer to as wood-working. I have great respect for luthiers.. chair-makers.. etc. as it requires skills beyond the ordinary!

Regards...

Seth Dolcourt

05-30-2010, 11:43 AM

Hi, Sarge,

Always good to hear from you.

I liked building furniture, and all that acquired knowledge, both mental and practical, is what makes drum building so "easy", relatively speaking. Drums fit my shop better than furniture, a point I'm reminded of when I visit my woodworking buddy, who has managed to cram a herd of high end Powermatics into a standard 2 car garage. The 8 chairs he's building consumes the remaining space that's not occupied by Big Iron.

Drums are very specialized furniture, really. The expectation is they get hit, typically an unwelcome action on a nice demilune hall table or Krenov cabinet. Krenov probably would've spit molten rock if someone pounded out a classic rock 'n roll pattern on one of his cabinets.

Cheers,

Seth

Bob Lewis

05-30-2010, 2:20 PM

Very cool post. It is great to see the process as well as the project. I was wondering what you do to turn the inside diameter of the drum?

Seth Dolcourt

05-30-2010, 3:08 PM

Bob,

I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, so I have no idea if I've posted my whole routine. If not, here is a link to my Picasa album, showing how this drum was turned, both outside and inside.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sdolcourt/13x55#

It's a good diversion as I wait for the lacquer to finish curing....

Doug Carpenter

05-31-2010, 8:07 AM

Seth, your work blows me away!

Very nice. You should post a video of you playing one you built.

Doug

Mark Duksta

05-31-2010, 10:39 AM

Hi Seth,

You've inspired me to build a snare drum.

A few questions:

On the inside turning jig, how do you line up the wheels to be exactly across from each other?

When truing up the edges to be perpendicular to the side of the drum, it seems that you are assuming that all the staves are all glued up uniformly in relation to each other. Is that difference small enough so that it does not matter using them as a guide to set them up perpendicular to the turning table?

Also. I've been researching over on Drum Shed for the last couple of days. I've seen Koko's jig and also your posts. Do you think your method of turning the outside of the shell is easier?

Thanks,

Mark

Seth Dolcourt

05-31-2010, 5:03 PM

Seth, your work blows me away!

Very nice. You should post a video of you playing one you built.

Doug

Hi, Doug,

I don't play myself, but I know some people who do. I'm sure something can be put together.

Hi Seth,

You've inspired me to build a snare drum.

A few questions:

On the inside turning jig, how do you line up the wheels to be exactly across from each other?

When truing up the edges to be perpendicular to the side of the drum, it seems that you are assuming that all the staves are all glued up uniformly in relation to each other. Is that difference small enough so that it does not matter using them as a guide to set them up perpendicular to the turning table?

Also. I've been researching over on Drum Shed for the last couple of days. I've seen Koko's jig and also your posts. Do you think your method of turning the outside of the shell is easier?

Thanks,

Mark

Mark,

Winner! Drum Shed is a great place for all things drum building.

If you look at the last picture of this thread, you'll get an idea of how I mount the skateboard wheels. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=130336

The fulcrum allows for vertical adjustment, as well as rotation. So I can tweak the tilt of the drum, and by rotating an arm forward or backward, I can steer the shell until it runs straight and true. It is fussy work, and probably the weakest design of all the jigs. I haven't yet come up with a better way.

The object of this jig is to rely upon the outside diameter to maintain concentricity. Tilting the shell permits correcting wall thickness; if one side is thicker than the other, I can either move an arm up/down, or stick shim stock under the router track.

How to line up the wheels? I move the two stands together until the wheels touch, then I correct them so they are even. Then I move the stands apart enough to drop the shell on and install the router track.

Yep, I have to presume that the staves' joints are all perpendicular. It's possible they might get wiggly during glue up, but since I chain them all together with two strips of painters tape, it's not likely. Here is an example.

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I've developed my jig for the way I like to work, so yes, I find my method easier than Koko's. However, he developed his way for his method of work...so really, it's a matter of what works best for you.

My jig knocks down for storage, important since my garage is my shop, and my wife parks her car in it. My jig probably more quickly sets up for different shell diameters, but there's more tweaking involved to get everything aligned just right. My jig is simpler to make, I rely upon the axle and bearings to be the only accurate parts to make the turning axis.

Please let me know if I've covered the answers, or if you need more info.

Cheers,

Seth

Mark Duksta

05-31-2010, 6:33 PM

Seth Dolcourt

05-31-2010, 7:11 PM

Thanks Seth. You covered those questions.

Where do you get the roller bearings? I've found many different sources. And what about the shafts for the bearings? Is there a certain bearing that I can use a bolt for the shaft?

Mark

Mark

You've no idea the obsession you are about to experience! But it's a healthy obsession, lots of good will come from this.

I used 1614ZZ bearings, purchased from a local industrial supply shop. McMaster Carr could be a good online source. The bearings have a 3/8" I.D., so I went to the local hardware store and trolled the bolt section until I found a bolt that had enough unthreaded shoulder for the bearing to fit upon, and a flat washer opposite the bolt's head. If a bolt's shoulder is right, but the bolt is too long for where it's supposed to go - Mr Hacksaw solves the problem.

Some bolts fit better than others; take all the bearings with you to the store. I tried for a fit where the bearing juuuuust slid on, not too loose or tight.

1/4" or 5/16" I.D. bearings would equally work, I think the 1614ZZ bearing might be way overkill. There's not a lot of weight or stress on the bearings; shielded bearings are probably the most important thing. However, I do like the 1 1/8" outside diameter, it just seems like the right size.

Mark Duksta

05-31-2010, 9:05 PM

Thanks for the info Seth. I love this kind of stuff. Problem solving. When I start something like this my mind is always thinking of it. I've played the drums since high school, and I've been woodworking that long also. Seems like these paths should have crossed long ago.

I'm getting a little ahead here. I'm going to start making staves soon. I'm sure I'll have more questions.

See you on Drum Shed (and here).

Play drums!

Mark

Seth Dolcourt

06-14-2010, 1:48 AM

I've started sanding this beautiful shell, which is not noteworthy from the standpoint of pictures. Though I have a set of factory made lugs, I'm taking a crack at making my own, using hardware store flat stock steel. And that is an interesting story.

The waist is gouged out using a 4 1/2" grinder.

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I drill an end point.

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With a cut off wheel, I cut the channel. X chromosomes or tuning forks? They do sing like a tuning fork, I'd hate to see the creature that comes from this genetic structure....

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My buddy's forge, converted from a chiminea. A fire pot has been fitted, and there is a hand crank fan that forces air in from the bottom of the fire pot.

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A light weight anvil. It's only light weight until you catch your thigh on the horn while walking around it. Then you feel the weight.

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The bench, with hammer rack. The cannon shot help form curves.

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When I arrived today, he was making a candle stand.

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Here he is, flaring the cup on the anvil's horn.

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Seth Dolcourt

06-14-2010, 1:53 AM

Let's make some lugs!

The fingers are heated, then the curl is started by bending the fingers over the edge of the anvil.

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More hammer hits to keep the curl...curling.

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The curl is formed over a mandrel.

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Flattening the lug, which easily twists due to hammer blows.

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Sorry for the far away shot, but in the center are the completed lugs.

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This is not a white glove hobby. In the next few weeks, I hope to have this whole project done. Thanks for looking!

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Seth Dolcourt

06-21-2010, 10:20 PM

So where have I been, what have I been doing?

This.

Time to route the drum's bearing edges. Holy wars have been fought over edges - rounded, sharp, 30 degree, 45 degree, yada, yada. Keepin' it simple. A counter cut on the outside relieves the sharp edge, and allows the crease of a pre-formed commercial drum head to fit the outside counter cut. I actually cut the inside first, to get an idea of how much I was cutting. It it worked out to about a 3/32" deep cut. Perfect.

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Once the outside is done, I focus on cutting away the inside. The more I cut, the thinner the sharp edge becomes.

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Hard to see in this picture, but the "land" between the outside and inside 45 degree cuts is 1/32" or less. The square-ish land will be knocked down with sand paper.

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Here, I am hand forming the snare bed. The bed is a shallow curve, and it will intentionally cause a dip in the thin, bottom drum head as it approaches the bed. Doing so allows the metal snares to sit closer and tighter to the drum head, eliminating unwanted buzzing sounds. This is about 3/32" deep at the center. That's why I was concerned about the outside counter cut - I used the sharp line created by the router cut as the bottom of the bed.

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Very difficult to see, the camera doesn't like to focus on such a thin line, but this is the bed, cut with a Microplane rasp and some sandpaper to dress it up. I then took a curved Microplane and cut away a lot of the inside part of the snare bed to match the angle and profile of the bearing edge. When tracing the bearing edge with a finger, you can feel the bed sloping down hill until you reach the bottom, then sloping back uphill to rejoin the edge.

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Trussed up on my router table, the shell is about to undergo polishing. Behlen's string instrument lacquer makes a nice luster, and this shell has been waiting, waiting, waiting.

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It doesn't take long. One pass with a wool bonnet and Meguire's cleaner. No swirl remover, no wax. I'll do wax with a microfiber cloth, later.

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Remember those blacksmithed lugs? Temporarily affixed to the shell. Meh, too large, too much metal. I need to make new lugs, and a lot smaller and more delicate.

Thanks for looking!

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Jim Becker

06-23-2010, 10:23 AM

Wow...that is a major pretty shell!

Seth Dolcourt

09-18-2010, 2:22 PM

Where did 3 months go? Waiting for the custom lug manufacturer to deliver the lugs. Turns out I didn't blacksmith my own, after all, so I went with the guy that made the lugs for the 12 x 6 walnut drum project I posted. And the lugs arrived yesterday! So let's finish this project.

I've not yet mis-drilled a shell, thankfully. To keep it all orderly, I use blue tape to mark my locations. Here I simply label for lug locations (every other stripe), the strainer and the butt. Yep, butt. It's the anchor on the opposite side of the strainer...we'll get there.

The layout is a time thief. All that noodling around took an hour.

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First hole drilled, using a brad point 9/32". The lug has a screw boss that projects a small amount, so this hole doesn't have to be very deep at all, just a fat 1/16". This hole location is 1.5" down from the bearing edge, and the distance to the bottom hole location is 2.48". The bottom hole gets a 5/16" bit, to allow for any slight inaccuracies in center-to-center distance between the lug's mounting holes, and to help with vertical alignment - sometimes you have to shift a lug a smidge this way or that way to get the vertical dead on.

Not photographed, but after the two location holes at each of the 8 lug positions are drilled, I go around the shell and finish the through-drilling of the location holes with a 7/32" brad point. The lugs are attached from the inside of the drum using 5 x 20 mm cap screws, so I need through holes. 7/32" through holes are also needed for strainer and butt, and the vent needs a 1/2" through hole.

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All done drilling.

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This is the close up of the butt. Yes, butt. Dunno why "they" call it a butt. The supplier is Drum Foundry, the brand is RCK. The function of the butt is to anchor one end of the snare wires.

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Inside the shell. Not a sexy place, but a vital, functional place for the other end of thru-bolts. Lock washers AND blue thread locker. Because the drum sustains shock and vibration, screws want every opportunity to work themselves loose. It is entirely possible - in a drum situation - to have your butt fall off. Why not ny-loc nuts? Sure, you can use ny-locs. But I'd still put thread locker on.

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This is the strainer. Again, Drum Foundry, RCK. The bail handle rotates down, causing the bottom clamp to drop down by 1/2". That action effectively causes the snare wires to fall away from the bottom head, changing the sound of the drum. Turning the knurled knob will cause the bottom clamp to raise or drop in small increments. This allows for fine tuning the tension of the wires, to eliminate unwanted buzzing.

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All the hardware is now mounted on the shell. The lugs are made by Allstar Drums in Southern California. They are mounted on the walnut stripes.

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If you've seen my 12 x 6 walnut drum thread, I go into great detail there about this next process. I'll recap. This is the bottom head, called the snare side. The head (Evans brand, in this case) is clear, and about 3 mils thick. The black metal hoop nearby will be put over the head.

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Seth Dolcourt

09-18-2010, 2:35 PM

Getting close to done. Let's finish it!

The hoop is on the bottom head. The next step is to thread on tension rods and tighten the head. There are methods of tuning the head to a specific note, I just go for a certain tone, and make sure the tone is generally the same at all the lug points. As the drum is played, the heads will stretch, so it's not critical to get a perfect tune at this point. As this drum is played more, I'll continue to tune the heads. So it's not a one-time deal.

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Here I've laid out the snare wires themselves. Sharp eyed viewers might wonder why there are wires missing from the center area. The answer is - there are many, many different types of snare wire units, each give a unique sound. These are Pure Sound brand, Equalizer model. And they have an empty center section.

Two separate lengths of grosgrain ribbon will be fed through the slot in the snare wire unit, one each connected to the strainer and the butt.

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Once the nit-picky work of centering the snare wires is done and the grosgrain ribbon is cinched tightly to the strainer and butt, the drum is flipped over, and the top head is installed. Evans brand again, coated drum head, about 10 mils thick.

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Yay! Done. In the center of the shell is the vent hole, and a metal escutcheon is installed. No particular brand name, but this is a standard drum part, found in drum parts catalogs.

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Another view.

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Final view. Thanks for looking!

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