CONGA MAKEOVERS

[Isaac]

Hey Joseph...
You've done a beautiful job and made a good decision to leave the bearing edge
the way it was, as Jonathan also suggested. Your medium mule will sound great. Mule is also dense enough
to prevent a drum from going out of round when there is no steel alma inside.
I've had Caly at JCR refurbish for me a few larger Gon Bop sets and two separate
super quintos. We only use mule for the past 10 or more years.

~ ISAAC
percussionist / sales JCR percussion co.

[Joseph]

Vintage Gon Bops

........Photo speaks for itself.

[Joseph]

To assuage my fears of soft luan not being up to increased tension required for mule skin, I added 1/4" oak doubler plates glued & bolted to inside surface of luan staves.
Click on photo to enlarge for better view.
That tape on there was my color coding to put rim / lug plates all back in original position.

[Joseph]

Hey Chupa,
Regarding treatments on bottom edge of shell:
Here's something I learned from Dario
For the bottom of drum
3/4" vinyl tubing, sliced, and run around bottom of drum, held on with carpet tacks.
Thickness of vinyl keeps tacks from contacting floor surface.
Very unobtrusive...almost invisible...very protective of drum shell bottom edge, and floor surfaces.

~Joseph

[Chupacabra]

Thanks for the info Joseph. It's definitely a contender but I do have an almost limitless supply of 1/4" or 3/8" flat rubber gasket material and West System Epoxy that is pretty much free (or trade for a six-pack, bag of coffee, etc.). As coincidence has it, I happen to have some of the very same hose you have that I use for beer making. I might just give it a try on the bottom of one of my djembes!

Cheers!

[Congadelica]

Great job Ralph. you must be pleased as hell / look s very nice . I love these project pics .
Like saslaboriuca says keep um comin .

marco

[bongosnotbombs]

That drum looks great! Good work, man!

[Sakuntu]

OK Folks, Buffing question....I just poly'ed my matador quinto (Minwax fast drying poly-High gloss) and now I want to buff it up for that real smooth finish that steven got with his Gio's (at the start of this thread). has anyone ever buffed out their conga? Should I use a orbital buffer? if I do, what buffing compound should i use...I think the Liquid Glass that steven talked about is a bit too $$$ for me. Can i just use the coumpound wax like white diamond etc... or tripoli etc... I'm not to up on buffing stuff so any help is appreciated. thanks

[Ernesto Pediangco]

salseroboricua....

thanks for sharing the photos...I myself and working on putting some life back into an old gon bop that has seen its share of rumbas and has the battle scars to prove it....it originally belonged to a brother named Kwe Yao out of NYC....my friend Danny Diaz inherited his drum when he passed, and it has seen better days...apparently Cali had retrofitted a rim, and possibly an alma...(for some reason I am under the impression that Gon Bops did not make there drums with almas at the time) in any case, there are a couple of cracks at the bottom of the drum that seem to have been repaired as good as can be, but before the cracks where still really obvious...i have sanded them down along with the rest of the drum and will be sanding some more this week. Also the metal bands were brown and rusty, that too I sanded down as best I could...anyway i figured I would post my progress so far......I am thinking of painting a dark brown, and finishing off with a marine varnish...I want a real glossy finish...I will be getting new lugs...and if the skins doesn't work possibly a new skin...

Hey does any one know a good source of quality lugs that are easy to get as the lp lugs but maybe a little cheaper?

RE: lugs, Lp ^ gon Bop have differing alignments between the crown & side lug positions & do not align properly. Timba & the new Gon Bops share the original Gon Bop hook shape profile. Always use corectly fitting hooks & do not subsitute unless its a coincidental proper fit.

[Ernesto Pediangco]

Hey Chupa,
Regarding treatments on bottom edge of shell:
Here's something I learned from Dario
For the bottom of drum
3/4" vinyl tubing, sliced, and run around bottom of drum, held on with carpet tacks.
Thickness of vinyl keeps tacks from contacting floor surface.
Very unobtrusive...almost invisible...very protective of drum shell bottom edge, and floor surfaces.

~Joseph

I do the same to the bottoms of my drums if they do not already have a prefered rubber boot. How ever, I do not add tacks to the bottom ( Gon Bops style ) But I tack the tubing on the inside shell where it secures well & does not continue hammering into the bottom shell, there are no wrinkles or buldges on the bottom when there are no tacks. I also cut 1 inch sections ( about 5 evenly spaced ) from the very bottom to allow some venting of the drum rather than it being air sealed to the floor. A drum sounds best when it is slightly vented. Drums that do not come with bottom of shell protection are risking damage to the shell, to floor surfaces & the drum does not resonate as cleanly & tonaly as when it has a rubber boot w/ some venting as well.

[Ernesto Pediangco]

Nice & clean restoration ! To bad this is ever necessary to do at all, but the results are satisfying to produce a clean drum. It always bugs me that drum companies can not protect the drums bottom edge w/ rubber boots or the lug plates damaging metal edges that do lots of damage to adjacent drums...eventually requiring surface restoration. Drum set industry would never tolerate such lame ignorance in these regards. We buyers of Latin drums have been suckers of this for a long time ! But...I do not want to have to do repairs to my drums ! They should have simply corrected the designs & eliminate the protruding metal edges, like those stupidly designed conga mounting brackets with 2 ears sticking out towards the congas stand, that are like putting barbed wire of a drum shell ! Of course they will scratch the other drums !!?? Things like this turned me away from stupidly designed Asian Imports & I would rather build my own mountings than to use problem causing cheap hard wares. I also use a fanny pack as a tool & accessories bag that acts as a bumper between the drums. I simply attache the bumper over a conga mount & partially over 1 or 2 lug side plates. My drums never bag against each other so I do not have to do such repairs on my own drums.

[Mike]

With all due respect, I do not quite see the point of dragging this 3-year-old thread
into the light again by posting three subsequent posts of your own, Ernesto.
As regards the topic, some of us just like the resto & makeover jobs, it is simply a
question of preference what you want to do with your conga...
So there is no use wailing about this or that IMHO.

[seisporocho1]

Good point Mike.

Now back to the subject, does anyone know how Volcano Percussion places the bottom protective rubber on their drums? It's such a perfect, very pro job, I would to just understand how they do it.

[Jerry Bembe]

2 part epoxy and #4 nails or wire nails with a head sunk in.

[seisporocho1]

thanks JB.