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Ashiko Drum Building

    Basic Construction
   Edges
   Heads
    Photo courtesy of fienddrummer


Basic Construction

DISCUSSIONS FROM THE DRUMSHED FORUM

fienddrummer:
Mine are stave constructed and hand sanded into round (no lathe).
They'll end up being around 12" at the head, and 7" at the bottom, and 1" think. They are pictured upside down....they stay safer that way until you get the heads on them.

tbone:
Good job - I'd think they're more complex to calulate cutting than regular staves. I'm really impressed with the rings you're using to hold the form - where'd you get those?

fienddrummer:
The glue up rings were made for me.....they're just concentric circle steel rings, glue up the stave and hammer the rings down on the staves to clamp them together.

Removing the Stave Edges
koko:
Fiend,those are very nice looking.
Do you know that you don't necessarily have to sand them round by hand?
If you make a box and have them rotate inside the box and have a router sliding over the edges of the box you can cut them with the router? (For details see Koko's jig and the many variations it has inspired here).

fienddrummer:
Hey Koko, I've been reading on your router rig....that's very cool.
One of my best friends (I actually call him my brother), just bought a HUGE lathe. He wants to start turning the drums on it to speed up the sanding process. I'm talking him into building drumset shells as well. His lathe will be able to do bass shells.....it's HUGE!

koko:
That is great, a bro, ahuuuu lathe, eeuh...... bro is great.
I like the gluerings very much Fiend, they are pretty cool. Easy, cheap, will do the trick perfectly and no extra skills needed. Those kind a tools are the best.

fienddrummer:
Just thought I'd give an update. I rolled the steel for the rings this past weekend. I bought a ring roller from Harbor Freight...and there's no real way to figure out how many turns on the knob to roll whatever diameter ring...so that was rather frustrating! But I figured out a method, just go a little at a time and just keep rolling them until the ends meet. I wasted a few pieces of steel before I got to that point!!! ha ha I don't have a welder so I had to find someone else to do that part. I'll get pics of the rings soon.

We're planning to get together this Friday evening and all day Saturday to finish off these 5 drums. We'll be soaking the goat hides, lacing the drums, and streching the heads, and doing the initial shaving on Friday. Then pulling the drums, final shaving and tuning. I'll post pics of that process after this weekend.

Heads
jbfrench75:
What are the heads? Cow or goat ?

fienddrummer:
The heads are goat hide imported from West Africa. They are better than goat hides from the US because the African goats are malnurished so their hides are less fatty.

Chippy569:
Is the fur ring around the head supposed to be there? That would hinder, err, "rimshots" would it not?

fienddrummer:
Hey chippy, yeah the fur ring is suppose to be there...it doesn't have to be, but there's nothing wrong with it being there. It doesn't hinder the "slaps" which are the african equivilent to a "rimshot". Do a search on Google for Ashikos and you'll find that some have the fur and some don't.