Holiday Mule Joy...!

[SpEd]

Well, I provided the contact info for L&H Percussion, and my wife took it from there....So this year I found mule skins under our tree.

Had some time off over the holidays, so I wasted no time mounting them on my Conte's. Huge improvement over the stock water buff skins. Also, Michael of L&H was great help with questions, and skin expertise etc. He even threw a very nice bell beater in the box.... Thanx so much Michael!!!

I did the conga first... skin in the tub for 4 hours... and then mounted & trimmed it with little trouble. I have mounted djembe heads before, but had never done congas. I was looking forward to the ease of tuning lugs rather than pulling rope!!

It was a bit difficult to set the second rod in the crown, but after a bit of struggle, the rest went in easily. I did not use rod extensions of any kind.... just my weight on the crown enough to set the rod. I let it dry for three days, with a quarter turn each day to eliminate the sagging which started to show up.

After the conga was dry, and I realized the great results I had, I jumped on the tumba. A little more struggle to set the second rod on the tumba, and I pulled the skin with vice grips a little tighter before trimming (resulting in a shallower set than the conga... lesson learned) but otherwise, same positive results.

[congamyk]

Nice story, thanks for sharing.
You should nominate her for Wife of the Year!
Congrats on the new skins.

[Mike]

Hey-ho, well done, looking good, and
you seemed to have the same christmas fun like me
with those easy-to-mount L&H Muleys.
I bet your Meinls will sound great!

A nice Christmas tree and toy train you have too

And welcome to the forum!

Edit: On viewing your avatar: It is better to have more skins than more cowbell


P.S.:

I did the conga first... skin in the tub for 4 hours... and then mounted & trimmed it with little trouble.

It was a bit difficult to set the second rod in the crown, but after a bit of struggle, the rest went in easily. I did not use rod extensions of any kind.... just my weight on the crown enough to set the rod.

Well, the L&H skins I got from Michael needed 5 hours of soaking time.
Only then were they fully pliable. Maybe you undersoaked your skin slightly.
But nevermind, the result looks great, certainly better than my first self-mounted conga skin.