Handmade leather conga bag
Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 8:51 pmHello 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
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 4098 times
- 25-30 sq ft of 2mm thick leather
- leather.jpg (35.55 KiB) Viewed 4098 times
- cut and dyed
- mercator.jpg (46.1 KiB) Viewed 4097 times
- liner attached and zippers sewn
- flat.jpg (39.79 KiB) Viewed 4097 times
- this art is also on Dave's website!
- art.jpg (57.39 KiB) Viewed 4098 times