Pterocarpus Rex drum set

[Pat Barry]

Thanks for the detailed study in drum making Seth. I find it fascinating. Especially like to see the tricks you've learned along the way and the creative fixturing and tooling ideas you've come up with, for example the inside lathe apparatus is fantastic. What do you do to turn the ID of the smaller diameter drums, though. The ones the router won't go through? Ahhh, nevermind - I found another of your posts - just switch to a smaller router. Excellent work Seth!

[Ted Calver]

Seth, Your posts are always inspiring. I love the way you tackle creating these shells and look forward to seeing each set. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to document your process. As Pat said, it's fascinating

[Seth Dolcourt]

Thanks for the detailed study in drum making Seth. I find it fascinating. Especially like to see the tricks you've learned along the way and the creative fixturing and tooling ideas you've come up with, for example the inside lathe apparatus is fantastic. What do you do to turn the ID of the smaller diameter drums, though. The ones the router won't go through? Ahhh, nevermind - I found another of your posts - just switch to a smaller router. Excellent work Seth!

Thanks, Pat. I've had to give the 8" diameter rack tom to another drum maker to turn for me. I just can't fit the Bosch Colt inside of it, the ID is too small.

I needed 2 hours to drive out to see him, but the adventure was worth it, I haven't been east of Sacramento, CA for a long time. He took me to a lumberyard one town over, and I found 2 planks of figured birch with great grain that I had to have. Passed on some figured sycamore, but I was tempted.

Seth, Your posts are always inspiring. I love the way you tackle creating these shells and look forward to seeing each set. Thanks for sharing and taking the time to document your process. As Pat said, it's fascinating

Thanks, Ted. I've been patrolling McMaster Carr the last few days, itching to buy some parts to upgrade the inside jig. I think I've found the winning pieces, which will be a benefit to have when the Big Fellah kick drum is turned. The goal is to connect a gear motor to the works, because hand-cranking the inside jig with a big shell on it is...a lot of effort.

I hope to have an update soon.

[Seth Dolcourt]

Back to making dust.


Here the 10" is inside turned and sanded. Sorry, no pictures, but it's a repetition of the 12".

10_inside_done_0.jpg


There was enough of this beautiful quarter / rift padauk left over, and I offered the customer his choice for a snare drum. He brought me this kit, so a little give-back is warranted. He chose a 15" diameter snare drum, which is a rare size, but I'll make it for him. Plus, he's gonna do the turning, I'm just doing assembly and making the edges flat and co-planer.


These are 17" long, need to be cross cut.

15_1.jpg


I have learned to hum the theme from "The Love Boat" when sawing. It's about the right cadence. Plus, with such narrow staves, I don't have to sing the whole song, just the easy parts.

15_2.jpg


Like buttah.

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Flashing red lights and sirens, the woodworking drama police arrived on scene. While cross cutting, the stave broke away early, very unexpected. Investigation found this nasty little check/crack/defect hiding in the wood. Crud-ola. I was counting on using these staves, now I'm two short, and have to use some staves from a different plank.

15_4.jpg


Lookit dat crack on the one stave that didn't have the chunk fall away. To attempt recovery, I attacked it with water thin CA glue, and gap filling CA glue. Learned a trick from a guy at Woodcraft, that if you can access the end of the crack, try fitting in un-waxed dental floss, and you can try to flow in CA glue into the crack.

More on this stave, later. I discarded the stave with the missing chunk.

15_5.jpg


Anyway, found enough padauk to keep going. More on this, later.

15_6.jpg

[Seth Dolcourt]

Ok, so focus shifts to the 22" diameter x 16" tall kick drum. The Big Fellah.


This shot of my drum lathe shows the 24" long axle pushed to its limits. Between the stands, about 16" capacity. I have to reserve some space for the MDF disks and attaching the crank handle, so the max width I can turn on a 24" long axle is a 14" long drum.

But...standing at attention is a 36" long axle. Problem eliminated.

22_turn_out_1.jpg


Drum, MDF disks and axle, start position.

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Disks and axle in place.

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All-thread rods are inserted, and finger tightened.

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That axle will go through the opening in the router plate.

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Alley oop. Now I can center the shell, using the dial calipers and checking the distance from the edge of the shell to the edge of the disk.

22_turn_out_6.jpg


And some wrasslin' later, the kick is in the drum lathe.

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[Seth Dolcourt]

Gave the shell a spin, and noticed the shell oscillating +/- 1/16". Not unexpected, but gotta solve the run-out, try to get it spinning more true. Left the shell in the jig, in the garage, for a cold week just to think about it, and when I came back to the project....

By cracky. Another crack, that think black vertical line, ending at the pen-scribed horizontal line. Padauk, why do you treat me so poorly?

22_crack_1.jpg


A run to Woodcraft. Gap filling on left, water thin on right.

22_crack_2.jpg


Clamp in the spreader position, I gently, gently applied pressure to open the crack just a wee amount.

22_crack_3.jpg


I own 5 Pfeil carving gouges, which would have done this next step much better, why did I pick a straight chisel? Maybe I like my Pfeils, not so much this Japanese chisel. Anyway, the goal was to pare away the surface wood a bit, cut in a channel. The channel will be lathed away, so no permanent harm.

22_crack_4.jpg


Soaked the crack with rounds of water thin CA and gap filling CA.

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Soaked so well, I got a large bead of excess on the bottom!

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A couple of furnace clamps, not too much squeezy-squeezy, just enough to draw the crack closed, a tiny bit.

22_crack_7.jpg

[Seth Dolcourt]

Moving on.

So some work on the 15" snare, where I had found the first crack.

The staves for the 15" come from the kick's staves, which were 3.5" wide or so. I need a finished width of 2.40" Figured I'd spare my custom 9 degree router bit some abuse, and ripped away 3/4" or so of waste.

As happenstance would have it, I ripped away the area with that crack. How did the CA glue fix work?

15_make_1.jpg


The black arrows tell the tale. Not bad at all, the CA filled the whole crack. There is nothing structural about the stave shell, so the sound is basically unaffected by the CA fill. It's still a spare stave, but if I had to use it, I'd feel comfortable.

15_make_2.jpg


Laid out 20 staves

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Circled up.

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And clamped. Glue tomorrow, it's too cold in the garage now!

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[Seth Dolcourt]

Little update. Glued the shell last night, just took it out of the clamps this evening.


These Jorgensen fabric clamps are great for stave glue ups. They cinch tightly, but a good glue-up does not have to be scream-o tight.

15_glue_1.jpg


4 staves had some transition from heart to sap wood, and usually, I don't mind that. The cosmetic issues I have is that 16 staves are from one plank, 4 are from another. There is no good way to tell a grain/color story, so with consent from the customer, I put the 4 "calico" staves NSEW.

Still left to do is flatten the edges and make them co-planer to each other. Weekend!

15_glue_2.jpg


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[Brian Kent]

Wonderful work. I love Padauk, except for the orange garage. Have you seen the color change over the years. Mostly brown with a touch of red, sort of like brazilian cherry. Keep the photos coming. I love watching.

[Dan Hintz]

I'm curious, Seth... what kind of prices do those drums command after all is assembled?

[Seth Dolcourt]

Wonderful work. I love Padauk, except for the orange garage. Have you seen the color change over the years. Mostly brown with a touch of red, sort of like brazilian cherry. Keep the photos coming. I love watching.

Thank you, sir. Yeah, I'm finding orange dust everywhere. I have my road bike hanging upside down from the rafters; the underside of the chain is orange...

I have a padauk mirror frame in the main bathroom, finished with Tried and True. Very dark claret red, but no brown. Then there is the carcass of a probably-never-to-be finished padauk spice box, and that has the brown hue.

I'm curious, Seth... what kind of prices do those drums command after all is assembled?

The absolute very top of the market could be 2 grand, asking, for just the snare drum. That's rare air, so the snare had better be something special. Figure $600-1200 as normal.

Search for Jon Cross custom drums in your favorite search engine, and you'll see some exemplary crafting. Nothing is veneered. He even routes in a 1/8" inlay into the bearing edge. You'd only see that adornment whe the drum head is removed.

Lucky me, he lives 90 minutes up the road, so once a year, I host a drum hang at my house, he brings all kinds of drum goodies.

Another fellow builder (Bellwether Drums) experiments with inlay and keys. He is the only one I know who takes a stock hardware piece (the strainer) and not only turns a wood knob and cap, but cuts, reshapes and polishes the aluminum body to make a lighter, sleeker design.

Were I to fully finish and dress out this 7 piece kit, asking range would be $3-6k, leaning higher than lower.

[Dan Hintz]

That's about where I expected it to be... they look great.

[Dave Laatz]

Seth, you'll post anywhere.... They still look good.

[Seth Dolcourt]

Hey, ya Dave! Have you visited the knitting forums? I'm there, too.

SMC has been awesome for posting drum builds. Huge variety of projects going on, and there is some inspiration to be found. Carving, finishing, inlay, the works.

[Seth Dolcourt]

Did some work on the outside of the 22" kick drum.

22" diameter x 16" deep shell, mounted up in the rig.
22_outside2_2.jpg


First bites of the first pass. Serious color change!
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Fast forward to the end result. Measured 68 5/8" circumference with my flexible metal tape, and hit it for a bit with 80 and 100 grit, cross grain, to remove tool marks.
22_outside2_5.jpg


Remember all that drama about the crack? Here is said crack, filled in with Hot Stuff CA glue. Pretty good.
22_outside2_5a.jpg


And another view of the shell out of the rig. Just a smidge larger than 21 13/16" diameter. A commercially made drum head for a kick drum requires a shell that is 3/16" smaller than nominal size, and final sanding will bring the outside diameter to spec.

Yep, inside turning to do, but that will be another day.

22_outside2_6.jpgi