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Hi all, I've just received my MEINL Conga (fiberglass) bought from French e-bay and oooops ! it's egg-shaped. The rim (traditional) too.
Very sad.
Is it possible to repair it ? Maybe I could find a person who could bring rim and skin ring back to round shape, but what about fiberglass drum ?
Have you had any experience with that ?

If possible send it back and get a refund. Looks like they have been dishonest if the description did not explicitly state this

The ebay minefield takes another casualty.

The stupid thing is that I bought that drum on December (more than 60 days ago).
There were some problems with payment, as the seller didn't accepted PayPal, and I was in India that
time, so it was difficult to pay for it, but after few weeks of conversation he signed for PayPal and
I paid using PayPal.
Now, when I want to find this item in my ebay, I can not get things older that 60 days.
I can't to escalate a case, or to give the feedback. It's just too old case as I understand.
And, of course, I need to check the description before, but I can not find it ...

OK, I found it:

conga AA
HAUTEUR 70 CM
DIAMETRE 30 CM
PORT EN SUPLEMENT 15 EURO COLISSIMO


"AA" means MEINL logo here

And 2 pictures, where this drum looks old, but in shape.
That's all.

El Greco, how would you deal via PayPal in case like this ?

PART 2:

As too much time has passed since I won this drum, I was not able to issue e-bay claim,
but it was OK with PayPal claim, but the final answer wasn't satisfying:
"As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods.
It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received.
Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund."

OK, it's mine now. So the secong question follows: Has anyone ever repaired fiber conga which had egg-shape head ?

I actually thought fiber drums lasts forever ...

*

Have a craftsman put an "alma" inside the conga. Then put a new skin on it, when is dried and you start tunning it, the out of round (egg shape) condition will eventually disappear. All congas shoul have "almas" in them, this prevents congas going egg shape.

Saludos,

Dario

Hey Dario, where do you place the alma initially ? I have a valje quinto slightly out of round that i'm preparing to reskin, I'd love to try this and correct it. I thinking I wouldn't be able to get the alma all the way up precisely because of the out of round condition, do you place it as high as poss and then move it up as roundness returns ?

Cheers, barrie

Roka on the fiber glass conga , put the alma = 3/8 ths in thickness, you may have to wrap it in more fiber, some pics can be helpful.
No 2. On the Valje, wet the top 24 hrs. then push the alma to about 1/4 " inch from the top. Then do as Dario said new skin etc....

Paz
Olsongo

Hi again, here comes photos. Actually it was not so easy to catch the defect with camera.
The conga looks more poor in reality




And I didn't manage to photo cracs on the top of the drum. There are 2 cracs almost
against each other on the edge of the conga.
Is it worth to work with this drum even if it's possible to repair?

I've asked this before but I'll ask again. How do you get an alma in drum? If its solid metal band its got to be smaller than the hole (which defeats the purpose) to go in. The only thing I can think of is
A. Its not solid [there is a cut in it] or
B.Its flexible enough metal to bend going in and spring back once inside or
c. ?

Hi Roka. Typically an alma is installed at the time of construction, when the drum is round and the fit is fairly tight as it should be in order to keep the roundness. Since your drum is aready out of round you are going to have to perform this in steps, think of it as braces for teeth, you continue to adjust until they are in place. In your case you would have to have a custom made "alma like" ring that can be periodically adjusted in due time the roundness of your drum should improve.