Looking for Someone to Make Sugar Maple Drum Shells

[Marty Barron]

David here is a website for Pete Stanbridge who turns his own shells in the making of his drums. His drums look fantastic, sound great and being used by some top drummers worldwide.

Hope this helps.

Marty

www.stanbridgedrums.com/newsite/drums/index.html

[Steven Wilson]

But those drum shells are all glue ups. The original poster is looking for a single piece of wood turned into a shell, a very, very different animal

[TYLER WOOD]

Why not stave consrtuction with a thin veneer glued on. You still get the large porportion of wood to glue, the astetics of the solid turned, and the ease, and cheaper constuction costs. I have done this with a humidor (see previous posts for pics) and a friend turned a small drum for my son a couple weeks ago. The wood was not very good (poplar with a elm burl veneer he had laying around), but for a 4 year old to pound on it didn't have to be, but with the veneer on it it looked solid after I stretched the head on it. I think the resonance is fine just not the tone, too pingy instead of tommy. I understand you wanting to be high quality, but without having a huge inventory of logs to choose from, many of us just have logs gathered from downed trees. It gets very expensive throwing out most of the wood, just because of defects in the wood. GOOD LUCK!!!!

[Steven Wilson]

David, you pose an interesting challange. Let's take your worst case scenerio - the bass drum (floor tom's aren't far behind). For a finished 22" bass drum, I would want a tree with a diameter of 26" to accomodate the bark, outer layer, and out of round resulting from drying. Length would need to be at least 24", maybe longer. A 26x24 wet blank would weigh somewhere around 380 lbs (.56g/cc dry desity plus allow 50% for wet) which is a bit bigger than I and my wife would care to lift. So, to handle that blank I would need a high reaching engine hoist or a small overhead crane fitted in the shop. For moving that piece of wood around I would probably need to install a crane in the pickup or have a Bob Cat or forklift available at the house. I have a lathe with a fairly large capacity (Oneway 2436) but would need to have a custom outboard turning attachment made in order to handle the length of the blank, plus tailstock, face plate, etc.

Initial rough turning of the piece would be interesting and fairly risky. I'm not sure If I would leave a bottom (I might turn a plywood disk to fit the bottom and screw it in and band it) due to cracking problems associated with the thickness of stock I would want to leave in the base. A wet piece like this would probably move a lot so I would rough turn it thick, seal it, pack it in shavings and then let it sit for 3 months, at which point I would chuck it up and see where it's at. It would probably take a few sessions of turning and drying until final turning can happen. I would expect a 50% or higher rejection rate so for every finished shell I would want to rough turn 3 or 4 and would not expect a finished shell for at least a year (drying).

I'm thinking that to safely turn the outside and inside I would need to fabricate some specialist bowl steadies and jumbo jaws (possibly an expanding internal chuck that meets up with the tail stock). In any case I would need to contact my lathe manufacturer and other turners of large pieces to work on a safe way to handle pieces like this. It IS NOT a bowl. To gain precision I might need to fabricate custom ways to mount a router and slide that to make the exact external and internal diameters.

Gearing up to safely handle your project would be quite an expense and very few hobbiests probably have the equipment to safely tackle the work, even a snare drum would tax the equipment of most turners (pro or not), and we're not even talking about the cost of obtaining and transporting an appropriate tree. You may want to talk to Mary Lacer at the AAW to find resources that may be able to tackle your project.

[Ron Sardo]

I know of a person local to me who "wants" to make drums such as the ones you want. We spoke at length about his expectations and I understand exactly what you need .

This can be done and it would be very expensive. I told him that he would need to supply me with the wood and I would bill him for my time to create a process that would accomplish what he needs.

We expect the first shell to cost close to $5000.

Are you still game?

[Ted Calver]

David,
Would you consider allowing 1 glue line? If so, the shells could be roughed out on a large (20" resaw) bandsaw in the manner of bandsaw boxes. This might even allow you to get several shells from the same large blank. The resulting shell would be intact except for one nearly invisible glue line. Just a thought.
Ted

[David Loewen]

You guys, I appreciate all the responses, this is great. Now, to the last response.

Ron, could you explain to me what you think 5k would provide for you in order to create the first shell? I can imagine that it would take a hoist to get the log up onto the lathe, and I can imagine that to do this accuratley every time for production purposes would require some jigs and other stuff. I was asking around here in hopes of finding someone willing and capable of doing this (meaning that more or less they had the equipment that it would take).

Now you say " We expect the first shell to cost close to $5000". But after that first initial set-up cost, what could you see each shell costing?

[David Loewen]

Hey ted, could you explain to me what you mean. Help me visualize what you're talking about.

[Brian Weick]

David,
That's not a problem , You would have to ship the wood to my shop and I would need to know some more information,ie when you need them ~ I can do it for you ~ just have to be careful on the wall thickness- 1/2" is what I would recommend. as far as the lathe it would be crafted on ~ http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=18192
Brian

[David Loewen]

OK, Let me just clarify something for everyone if I may. I know that the drying is the make it or break it of this operation. There have been various suggestions on how to dry the logs, but I think I just need to clarify something - I am pretty sure that after a rough shell is cut (leaving maybe 2-3" of shell thickness to account for shrinkage and warpage during the drying process), the shell would then have to be kiln dried at some pretty decent temperatures. Check out www.lukapercussion.com/en/homepage.html and click on the "Fabrication" link down at the bottom after the intro plays. This is 1 of 2 drum companies in North America doing what I am wanting to do, and although they won't sell their shells, that page offers some insight into how they are doing it.

I think the the sealing and kiln drying are crucial to keeping the shell from cracking/warping too badly. So keep that in mind. You would probably have to have some connection with someone that has a kiln. So there are three prereque's I can see here, 1) a hoist (or really strong friends as a previous poster correctly identified up to 400lb logs), 2), A hugh and awesome lathe, and 3) Access to (or ownership of) a kiln.

I think where I am at right now, is that I'd like to do a few shells (like 3 or 4) as a means of judging quality, durability, precision... and then if all was well, I would be willing to set a price for the shells that took into account the possibility of having to invest some $$ into some custom jigs and whatever. If you can make 3 or 4 shells that I was pleased with, I would have no problem establishing a long term relationship. Like I said in my first post - I think there could be some really decent money in this down the road for a talented and knowledgeable person.

I know that it can be done, so no more naysaying. But I understand that most of you don't have the erquipment to take on something like this. I understand, and that's ok, I posted to catch the eye of the few who were capable and able.

Thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in this thread. I appreciate all of you insight and feedback.

[Ron Sardo]

You guys, I appreciate all the responses, this is great. Now, to the last response.

Ron, could you explain to me what you think 5k would provide for you in order to create the first shell? I can imagine that it would take a hoist to get the log up onto the lathe, and I can imagine that to do this accuratley every time for production purposes would require some jigs and other stuff. I was asking around here in hopes of finding someone willing and capable of doing this (meaning that more or less they had the equipment that it would take).

Now you say " We expect the first shell to cost close to $5000". But after that first initial set-up cost, what could you see each shell costing?

This type of work is not production work. Every shell would be a custom made shell. Consider the $5k as time and materials to create the product you need at the standards you set.

The cost for the blanks after the first can only be determined after the first successful blank is made.

[David Loewen]

I know that Penn's Woods in Port Alberny, PA sells kiln dried blanks of Sugar Maple, and so with a 22" or 20" piece, I could get all the sizes of shells I needed out of that one piece of wood. I assume that it is done drying and hence shrinking at that point. And if my assumption is correct, this just got a whole lot easier.

[Steven Wilson]

Ted, you wouldn't need to made a cut in the shell. Just use a bandsaw blade welder (i.e. drill hole, thread blade through hole, weld blade, cut out the hollow). Brian, I don't think that Oliver has enough swing capacity to do the bass drum or floor toms inbound.

[Ron Sardo]

I know that Penn's Woods in Port Alberny, PA sells kiln dried blanks of Sugar Maple, and so with a 22" or 20" piece, I could get all the sizes of shells I needed out of that one piece of wood. I assume that it is done drying and hence shrinking at that point. And if my assumption is correct, this just got a whole lot easier.

You can't kiln dry lumber that is thicker than 2", besides conventional kiln drying will change the wood tone.

[Steven Wilson]

I know that Penn's Woods in Port Alberny, PA sells kiln dried blanks of Sugar Maple, and so with a 22" or 20" piece, I could get all the sizes of shells I needed out of that one piece of wood. I assume that it is done drying and hence shrinking at that point. And if my assumption is correct, this just got a whole lot easier.

Do you have a link for them? Do you mean Penn's Woods in Port Allegany, PA? If so, where did you see that they had 24" diameter, 24" long kiln dried blanks? I don't see anything even remotely that size listed. The blanks I see on their site are seasoned (read probably sealed and then left to sit for a year or so) and of a more normal size for turners. They could probably obtain the size stock your looking for but it would be green (wet). Kiln drying would only make sense once you have a rough turned, stable shell around 1" in thickness. If you rough turned to 1" thickness and then put it in a kiln you would probably have a lot of warpage and wastage of your shell. You really need to rough turn wet, let dry for awhile, turn again, let dry for awhile and then when it's stable and roughly 1" thick then kiln dry if needed (probably won't). You may believe that you'll get all of your shells out of one blank. I kind of doubt that you'll get an 18" floor tom out of the inside of a 22" bass drum. Most of the other shells will be possible. To process this wood you need to allow quite a bit of wastage and understand that to core out the inside you will have slop with getting bandsaws to track real close, and auger bits to track straight enough for the larger shells. Things get a whole lot easier (and a lot less wastage) with the smaller drums.