building my own congas - help!

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Postby jmdriscoll » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:55 am

I ended up calling there yesterday and asking some questions about the drums. He said that if I write a letter stating that I take full responsibility for the drums after leaving their shop, then they would ship them. I told him that I would just purchase them and have a UPS or Fed Ex person come and poick them up for me. I can put insurance on the packages, but even if a shell gets cracked... well that wouldn't be anything that a few clamps and glue wouldn't take care of. He did say that they are 2-ply siam oak shells, and are made in Thailand... Not exactly custom shells, but still not be a bad starting point for the $$. I could still custom make traditional hardware, maybe groove some band slots in them, paint/stain/design the shells, and get some nice skins to mount on them. Maybe even fiberglass the inside.. or just epoxy paint it anyway. I'll try calling Bryon today and get some measurements to get a better idean of the size and shape..

Mike
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Postby tactikal » Thu Sep 13, 2007 1:35 pm

- be a little careful as (seeing as the shells may crack due to temperature or moisture changes as they get freighted) insurance might not actually cover it, seeing as the delivery company is not actually at fault.
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Postby jmdriscoll » Thu Sep 13, 2007 4:48 pm

Actually, I'm not sure if the delivery company would investigate that deeply. They would be just doing a pickup for me and woudln't know the contents of the package unless there was a claim. Either way, I can glue a crack if need be. It's all just a bunch of glued together staves anyway... as long as I don't receive a 3 big boxes of toothpicks.. :D

MD
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Postby jmdriscoll » Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:20 pm

After being told by rhythm traders that their shells are 2-ply siam oak, I found an interesting tidbit at this LP website:

http://www.lpmusic.com/Product_Showcase/Why_Buy_LP/whybuy3.html


Specifically the sentence that says the following: "The staves are glued together using several layers of thin wood, called plies. (LP and LP Matador brand congas use three ply and LP Aspire brand use two ply.) "

Not to knock on the those bare shells, but I think that I am going to go back to building the shell myself. I wish that they would sell me 3 of their bare ash shells...but I had no luck when posing that question to them.
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Postby OLSONGO » Fri Sep 14, 2007 7:22 pm

So Jim that means you can create a jig and glue layer by layer in order to create your stave, long process but it does facilitate the bending, and then what, rout the angle?

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Postby jmdriscoll » Fri Sep 14, 2007 8:35 pm

well, you would still be talking abo9ut 1/4" x 2" strips of wood. I would steam bend all wood first in a jig which would be overbent to allow for springback. Then once all wood is dry and will hold the curve, glue 3 of the pieces together in a glue jig in the exact bend that I want. Being that the wood is already curved to about the correct radius, once the glue dries, it will help to hold the shape a bit more rigid. So were talking about 3 ply staves, with each ply being 1/4". I ordered a book called the complete book on woodbending from amazon.com. It goes over a lot of variables with wood bending that I have probably not even considered. I think that I'm going to go by Sam ash music and get some measurements off of some galaxy's to start my drafting process. Yeah, it may end up being a long process..

Mike
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Postby OLSONGO » Fri Sep 14, 2007 8:41 pm

Mike, have you also considered having the staves lazer cut?
It would probably speed things up, the bending sounds too much time and I don't know how much you make an hour, thats how I look at things before I dive into it, is it worth the time? And it better turn out to be a kick ass tub.

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Postby jmdriscoll » Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:05 am

:D Yeah, tell me about it.. If I were to count that up in the end along with money spent on the drums.. I surely wouldn't be able to make a living at it. I'll look at it as a labor of love and smile the work hours away.. :D Besides, the first of anything will always cost money.. processes and skills get more efficient there after.

Never heard of laser cutting wood.... for real? Yeah, I'll have to look into that. I did find a website that sells kiln dried slats of finished oak and ash already cut to good widths and thickness. Although the site only shows them as being 24" long, I called them up today and the girl said that they cut them out of 8' lengths, so say a 36" piece is doable. Check em out.

http://itascawoodproducts.com/shop.php?product=ash&cart_id=

There are some good books out there on wood bending too.. didn't buy this one but there's pretty neat stuff in here too:

http://books.google.com/books?i....PA22,M1


Hope the people at sam ash don't kick me out of the store tomorrow when I show up and measure some drums.. ???

Mike
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Postby Chupacabra » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:11 am

There is a thread active in "What is your Dream Set?" that you might be interested in. If you've already started, how's the project going? I wish I would have seen this thread earlier!
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Postby jmdriscoll » Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:00 pm

Chupacabra, actually I have the plans partially complete. I have full scale drawings of the shell profiles. I am kind of at a standstill right now as I still don't know if I am going to steam bend the staves, laminate and jig glue/bend them, or just the curve of the stave out of a larger piece of wood like some other drum makers are doing. I still need to calculate the correct bevel and taper for each stave. I am liking the idea of laminating, glueing, and clamping the staves in a jig though. I would think that it would be cheaper than cutting out of solid, and easier to get the exact bend versus steam bending.

I did however pick up a cool woodworking machine off of craigslist for dirt cheap recently:

http://www.shopsmith.com/markvsite/

With the attachments that came with it, it is a drill press, table saw, jointer, planer, router/shaping table, lathe, and sander. A few extra tools from harbor freight, and I will be ready to start... That is, after I get done building the stuff that wifey wants to justify me buying the machine in the first place. Might be a work in progress, but not forgotten by any means. :) I'll look at that post too.

M

I swear, I can't post a single post without going back and editing!!




Edited By jmdriscoll on 1197644627
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Postby Tonio » Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:17 pm

Nice machine you got there. You can pretty much do the whole drum with that thing-except bending the wood.

Why are you against carving to staves, cost of the wood? It seems it would be so much easier, if you figure out the math.

T
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Postby jmdriscoll » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:18 pm

Tonio, I'm all about carving the staves out. Yep, cost of kild dried lumber that thick is what seems to be the killer for right now. I was wondering if some of these guys are plying the wood into big chunks then cutting them out,but I really don't think so after looking at this pic:

http://moperc.com/html_anglais/atelier_grand_an.php?limite=6


Looks like they were cut from a slab. I'm at a loss as to how you could cut the staves like that and come out ahead on your $$.




Edited By jmdriscoll on 1197719278
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Postby Congadelica » Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:28 pm

slightly off topic , but i thought id share this with you budding Drum makers , braver men than me ???
Its a guy building his own Atabque drum pretty good i thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drxrKJTm1Us&feature=related

marco :cool:




Edited By Congadelica on 1197797337
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Postby congalou » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:54 am

Hello,

I think that bending and glueing 3 ply could be a great solution easyer than a one piece solid stave. And the drum could be very solid.

Mike, I found tihs videos on the net. It's the modern manufacturing of wine barrel, they use one piece solid stave but maybe it could help you.

http://www.tonneau.com/pages/prod_videos.php

There is a wonderfull 23 minutes film named "the cooper" (in french : "le tonnelier") Bonus of the DVD "Farrebique" old french Film of Georges Rouquier 1942.

In France, it's easy to buy it, I don't know in other coutry but, if you can see it, I advice you this film if you like the wood working, it's simply beautiful.
Showing a cooper which make a Big wine barrel with his hands and original tools.

Galou.
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Postby jmdriscoll » Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:32 pm

Lou, I have given this a LOT of thought and when I do build these, I am going to glue and bend three 1/4" strips together to make one 3/4" bent stave. The jig that I think will work nicely for this is like the one shown below:

Attachment: http://mycongaplace.com/forum/eng/uploa ... g_form.jpg
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