building my own congas - help!

[Simon B]

Hi Stu

Hope all is well - summer rays have been tempting me outside with fellow percussionists!

Out of interest - what kind of gig are you playing on Sundays?

Simon

[congastu]

Hi simon,
Its lead by the saxophonist dave Edge[dont know if u remember the brasshoppers] whose background is more straight jazz, but is a big lover of afro cuban music. The line up is usually congas, timbales, bongos, keys, bass [somtimes double] and of course sax with other guys guesting from time to time on trumpet, flute etc. We usually play a mixture of son, bossa, calypso and funk- pretty much all sorts! tunes might include Afro-Blue, Watermelon Man, Footprints, Sonando, Funky Mama etc, etc.
Its every sunday at the Grapes on Knight street so come down if youre in the neighbourhood- guests always welcome.
peace and love, stu

[congastu]

Thats the Grapes, Liverpool by the way! 8.30pm onwards.

[Snake]

Gon Bops Congas have 24 staves each.

[timo]

the staves depend on how large the conga is and how they are built more staves = more work but(and #### hard to put together) but the staves are easier to bend(if your working by hand that is)..go to: http://www.hemp-sisters.com/bushman.htm
its in the links place...hes got some pics of conga making..hey congastu that actually can work very well...depending on the barrels of course, iv seen them been made into Taiko drums...

[Rubio]

To tell u the truth, Finnish Perc. might not even be in business anymore, but I would look them up anyway, they make really good fiberglass congas. But I saw them back in the 80's......JC JOHNNY CONGA... ???

Hi all!

I just noticed that Finnish Percussion is back in business. Here's their website: http://www.fpkotaja.com/finnish_percussion_congas.html

Their congas look great, but the prices... :O I'll stick to my old classic LPs.



Edited By Rubio on 1186483154

[burke]

Wow - just can't let this go by - anyone check out this "Bushman" site and read this horse hockey:
"merit the respect due the most primitive instrument on earth."

I guess I'll just go home put a loincloth on, take a dump on the floor and work playing my primitive instrument!

Darrell (grunt!, Grunt!!)

[jmdriscoll]

I know that the originating post in this thread is pretty old, but this topic is pretty interesting to me. I am very much a do it yourself kind of person, who has taken my wants into my own hands in the past and created things of equal difficulty. Although my background was in metal fafbrication, I have done some machine work and I know my way around a wood shop as well. ok, I digress, yet I haven't even started yet... "I should be sleeping, but instead I'm working all night".. :O

So anyway, I was reading the thread below and noticed some pictures that Tonio posted with the stack of staves in it. I had never realized that people built congas using cut curved staves, rather than steam bending them..

http://www.congaplace.com/cgi-bin....;t=3173

I never knew... I always thought that building my own set of congas would be too difficult due to the lack of uniformity in the steam bent staves. But... cutting the bend in staves... hmmmm, that kinda changes things a bit. I would think that tolerances could be managed a lot easier using this method. How long have people been building congas using this method? We have some lumber suppliers in the area that sell wood stock.. With the price of my labor aside, I wonder how much it would cost to build a set of 3 drums from the ground up? This would allow for the purchasing of the rim and head mounting hardware from an existing conga manufacturer. Anybody else ever thought about building their own set of conga shells?

MD

[jmdriscoll]

Actually, I guess those are Batas staves in the pictures.. but does anybody do this techinque with conga staves?

[OLSONGO]

Jm, he applies the same procedure with all of his drums.

Paz Olsongo

[jmdriscoll]

wow, thats great!! That changes the whole playing field knowing this little information. Ya know.. a lot of community colleges have wood working classes that will let you do projects assuming you are signed up for a class. Might be a good way to get my hands on the proper equipment to do the job. If I were to do traditional rims, then building the hardware would be possible as well. Just need to get hands on a tig welder. I like that stainless hardware on those Moparc drums.. that'll last forever as there is no plating that will come off. when it gets dull, you just polish it with some steel wool or scotchbrite, and it's as good as new. I know a friend of a friend who owns a saw mill and I wonder what would be the best wood to use if I wanted to use something that was locally available in the southeast/midatlantic US "Virginia". Maybe an oak or maple..

[jmdriscoll]

Well, I did some pricing on kiln dried wood stock and it seems that if I were to do it the way mentioned above, it would cost an arm and a leg to build 1 drum, much less 3. But now that I have thought about things and have this creation bug that I get sometimes, I am going to look into the process of wine barrel making since it is more readily available than the conga making process. Maybe this will give me some insight on the steam bending process and how I might be able to accomplish this. I was going to try and find a nice set of drums to measure, then come up with full sized drawings made to scale of individual staves, cut away views of top bottom, and mid curve section of the drum.. But for now, I'll just focus on the stave bending process, and move forward if I am sucessful in finding a feasable way for me to do that. If anything comes of this, I'll be sure to take pics of the whole process and post it for anyone interested.

[OLSONGO]

Jim , I used to work as R&D for a percussion instr. co.
I started to make one, as a matter of fact I still have the staves. At that time I was after the Gong Bop form; as I had a quinto and a conga and wanted a tumba. The wood is African Mahogany, the harder and heavier of the Mahoganies. What I need to do is angle the edges, and score the stave in the middle to aid the bending; and now days there is better glue to work with. Now is a matter of time , as I have been busy playing and recording.

Paz Olsongo

[jmdriscoll]

Paz, If you do decide to finish it up I'd love to see some pictures of your process. Sounds like some nice wood your working with. I think that building a set or even one drum for that matter would be an awesome accomplishment. I wouldn't think that there are too many people out there playing on drums that they built themselves. They'd be one of a kind.

Mike

[jmdriscoll]

I found a company in michigan where all that they do is provide steam wood bending services to furniture companies and anybody else that needs wood bent. I am going to email him more specifics in the coming week, to get a ball park price quote to supply and bend all of the staves. I will still have to taper and bevel the staves once bent, but that would cut out a LOT of time, money and effort if I could get somebody to do that part of the process for me.

My biggest question at this point is what kind of wood should I use? I know that a lot of commercially made drums are made from "Siam Oak" LP seems famous for using this type of wood. I didn't want to use anything too exotic so that I can keep the price within a hopefully affordable range... I was thinking of using Red Oak. I would think that red oak would provide good tonal qualities since it is a nice hard wood.. Is there any reason why red oak would not be a good choice of wood to make these drums out of?

Mike