Handmade leather conga bag

[tae]

Hello congaplacers,

I'm new to this forum and also conga drumming as well. I bought my first drum earlier this year and got very excited. Since I had been making small wallets etc. for myself and my gf, I thought I'd make a case for my drum (it was a big jump!). Needless to say, this was the largest project I've done, so it took many months since I can only work on it at night and weekends when I wasn't practicing my open tones. Since people in this forum might enjoy it, Dave suggested that I post pictures of it. Now that it's done, I can finally practice!

Goals
I designed it so that it to take all my gear to class in SF in one bag. The inside fits a 30" conga drum (it fits both my drums with an 11" and 12.5" head), a circular wooden board for under the drum, a drum throne seat. The top opens up via two 26" zippers ($20). The outside has a loop that fits the drum throne support (like an umbrella on a golf bag), two pockets, and a triple-fold suitcase handle. The large pocket holds a handheld cowbell with beater, a pair of clave sticks, and timbale sticks. The small pocket holds a digital metronome, a tuning wrench, and a pen. There is a loop on each side of the pocket.

Final design
I own no machines. Everything is hand-cut, hand-dyed, hand-painted, hand-stitched, hand-polished, etc. I made the body out of one piece of 4-5 oz veg-tan leather from Tandy Leathercraft ($150). It's cut into four sections that taper down like a mercator projection on a world map. The leather is dyed using Fiebing's professional saddle tan oil dye ($50); the body is darker because I mixed some of Tandy's own canyon tan water-based dye ($15). The lining is thin velvet-like material made of polyester from JoAnn's Craft Store ($12). The art work on the pocket is my version of the artist Evelio Garcia Mata's La Conga (1930s). The figures are filigreed, dyed ($20), then finished with Cova acryllic paint ($20). I baseball stitched the vertical seams with brass rivets ($10) at the bottom. Everything else is saddle stitched with nylon thread ($20). I also added wheels ($20) at the bottom after the photos were taken with a circular wood piece of plywood on the inside ($10). I used the Stohlman brand for hardware ($30).

Cost, time
On general stuff, I consulted Al Stohlman's books ($30) on cases, esp. the part about the golf bags. On specific stuff like handles and loops for buckles, I followed Valerie Michael's book ($20) on cases because the lines seemed cleaner to me. I spent a few nights a week for 3-4 months. For example, a suitcase handle takes 4 hours to complete; cutting/dying/painting/repainting the figures took 20 hours over two weeks. I spent about $200-$400, depending whether you count the left over material like dyes, paints, and books into the cost.

Future project
I plan on making a matching case for my gf's bongo drums. The art work will be La Rumba by Antonio Sanchez Araujo. Hopefully it will only take about a month when I get around to it.

I'll have to post again to upload the finished images.

cheers,
Tae

This is the drum I bought!

drum.jpg (33.58 KiB) Viewed 4092 times

25-30 sq ft of 2mm thick leather

leather.jpg (35.55 KiB) Viewed 4092 times

cut and dyed

mercator.jpg (46.1 KiB) Viewed 4091 times

liner attached and zippers sewn

flat.jpg (39.79 KiB) Viewed 4091 times

this art is also on Dave's website!

art.jpg (57.39 KiB) Viewed 4092 times

[tae]

Here is the finished case.

I added wheels after I took this photo

bottom.jpg (40 KiB) Viewed 4092 times

front view

front.jpg (39.72 KiB) Viewed 4093 times

top open

topopen.jpg (37.13 KiB) Viewed 4091 times

side

[seisporocho1]

Wow! Great job and congrats on the creative concept. Just love it. I want one for each of my drums!! Except I would like it with just a small pocket for wrench etc.....
Awesome!!!

[congamyk]

WoW beautiful work!

I don't own a single case, I've never used one in my 16 years of playing.
I really admire your work.

[vinnieL]

That is beautiful brother very nice work my friend.

[Gallichio]

Wow! That has to be the nicest, most beautiful Conga drum bag I have ever seen. I love it. Great work! I like to make one trip if I can from the car to the gig with all my equipment at once and this bag would do just that. If you play congas as good as you made that bag you will soon be one great player. Thanks for posting.

[tae]

Everyone: Thanks so much for your compliments!

Gallichio: It didn't take me that long to learn how to work with leather, but I think it'll take me much longer to learn how to play my conga!

Seis: For the bongo drum case I plan to make for my gf, I think I will make it simple like you suggest it with just one small pocket for the wrench.