Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Manufacturers, brands, skins, maintenance, stands, sticks, michrophones and other accessories for congueros can be discussed into this forum ...... leave your experience or express your doubts!

Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby congalou » Sat Mar 17, 2012 10:05 am

Inside : belt of Epoxy resin and tri-axial fibreglass tissu.... Strong.

Congalou.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby Gallichio » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:54 am

Congalou,
That drum project is looking awesome!
All the Best!
Mike Gallichio
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby seisporocho1 » Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:16 am

Congalou,

Amazing. The interior "alma" is also a great concept.

Thanks for posting.

6x8
Aiku,
6x8
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby congalou » Sun Mar 18, 2012 1:05 pm

Hey 6x8 !

Yes, I think it's good for the roundness because it's super heavy and glue very well the wood. Good also for the stress due to the hardware.

I will try new fiberglass tissu for the external layer, more heavy compared to the tissu I used before. It will be stronger, but maybe not nice and more problematic to use... I have to try to see it.

G.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby jorge » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:27 pm

What is the problem you are trying to solve, or prevent, by adding the interior fiberglass reinforcement?
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby congalou » Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:30 pm

Hi Jorge !

I repair lot of old congas and some are cracking aroud the plate.. It's for prevent that stuff. It's for prevent roundness deformation too.

I want my drum still making music in 200 years !!!

Future hardware : photo !

G.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby jorge » Sun Mar 18, 2012 8:25 pm

Yes, I have seen a number of old congas that have cracked around or below the lug plate. The leverage forces are larger for small lug plates, and often concentrated in one stave rather than spread over multiple staves, so I can understand you wanting to reinforce the area. I am not sure epoxy resin and fiberglass will last 200 years, but I used it (outside not inside) one of my drums over 30 years ago and it is still intact. One suggestion, try not to leave any air voids in the fiberglass/resin, this will weaken it a lot. You need to work all the air bubbles out from underneath or between the fiberglass cloth layers, most easily done while laying down the layers one at a time.

Depending on how strong the acacia wood is, the fiberglass reinforcement may well help prevent cracking from stress on the lugs. There is a trade-off between this advantage of fiberglass reinforcement and some potential disadvantages. I don't know how much acacia wood expands and contracts with changes in relative humidity, but a rigid fiberglass reinforcement inside the drum won't expand or contract at all with humidity changes. If the reinforcement is first installed in humid summertime when the wood is expanded, this may cause the wood to crack around it in the winter as the wood contracts but the fiberglass doesn't. I have had this happen with metal almas on several drums in New York winters. If the fiberglass is put in in the drier winter when the wood is contracted, it may separate from the wood in the summer as the wood expands and the fiberglass doesn't. This tendency may be reduced by a good polyurethane finish on the outside of the drum. Regarding roundness, it is usually at the bearing edge, not in the middle parts of the drum, that the drum goes out of round. That is why metal almas are generally placed up near the bearing edge. I have never seen a drum go out of round below the lugs, so I don't think you need to worry about that problem.

As you are well aware from previous threads, the other disadvantage of the fiberglass inside is that it increases the likelihood of ringing overtones. I personally try to minimize the amount of smooth hard surface area on the inside of my drums to cut down on ringing. In fairness, you can rarely hear the ringing when playing over a band and the fiberglass surface inside may make the drum a little bit louder (or not). These things are difficult to predict, and even more difficult to engineer or control.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby Mike » Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:04 pm

jorge wrote:As you are well aware from previous threads, the other disadvantage of the fiberglass inside is that it increases the likelihood of ringing overtones. I personally try to minimize the amount of smooth hard surface area on the inside of my drums to cut down on ringing. In fairness, you can rarely hear the ringing when playing over a band and the fiberglass surface inside may make the drum a little bit louder (or not). These things are difficult to predict, and even more difficult to engineer or control.


Well, Congalou has got some remedy against excessive overtones that some congas of mine also enjoy:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4494&p=46539&hilit=congalou+overtones#p46539
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby congalou » Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:25 pm

Totaly right Jorge, concerning the bubbles in the resin, It was a test and I have made the mistake to not sand a lot, for the next drums I will better sand the area of the layer before fiberglassing. It will be easyer to leave bubbles.

About the difference of the humidity in the wood between Winter and Summer, I will varnish the inside with a smooth varnish (3 coat at least) for stop the exchange wood / air. I have test on few drums before and it's OK.

Fiberglass = more overtones : Yes, I think too, but as Mike said, if it's a problem, I will control them with the attenuator.

About the metal ring, shure that near the bearing edge is the better. You have never seen a drum go out of round below the lugs ? do you think that it's only due to the hardware stress ?, not because of the wood ?

G.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby jorge » Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:50 pm

I think the main cause of drums becoming egg shaped is uneven tension on the skin across the top from careless tuning over months or years. I am talking about the horizontal component of tension across the top of the drum, not the vertical component of tension toward the lugs. This kind of uneven tension across the drum is greatest at the bearing edge, and minimal at other levels of the drum.

A sound absorber inside the drum works ok to kill the ring, I have been doing that for over 30 years on some of my drums, but it does not sound as good as a drum that naturally has no ring. It makes more sense to me to leave the inside of the drum with as much rough natural unfinished wood surface area as possible and minimize the area covered by metal or fiberglass. That is just my preference, by all means continue your experimentation and see if you find a better way. Us old fogies who like wood drums and real skins played acoustically in a real room with real musicians, real dancers and real singers are a shrinking minority now with heavy marketing of plastic heads, fiberglass drums, sampling, autotune, MIDI, electronic backing tracks, V-drums, etc.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby congalou » Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:03 pm

Yes, it's important to don't kill the sound with this kind of tools, but this one works pretty well because you can put the quantity of foam you want where you want.

Unfinish inside : I'm not agree because I have try on few drums before and after varnish inside. No differences. But depends of what you use, if you use super strong and kind of high gloss varnish, shure it will ringing.. mine is a smooth satin varnish.

I think you are right concerning the quality of sound, music in general, but to my mind, it's cool to search new stuff, technics, modern tools "ONLY IF" it's good for the music and the musicians, of course. I like the old fashion way, but sometime (that's just my opinion..) new stuff works, I have a old Meinl bongoes with plastic head, and honestly, it's works..

Have you got some photos of you're 30 years old drum with fiberglass outside ?, I'm fiberglassing my drums outside too and I should be very interesting to see a 30 years old fiber coated drum.

G.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby jorge » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:09 pm

I don't have any pictures, but I did not cover the whole drum with fiberglass on the outside, I just made a band around the bottom. Around 1973 my Gon Bops 11" mahogany quinto cracked in a few place. I fixed the cracks by drilling small holes at the end of the cracks and gluing pieces of wood dowel in the holes and gluing the cracks with epoxy. The bottom aluminum band was beat up so I made a fiberglass and epoxy resin band around the bottom, about 1" wide and 1" up from the bottom of the drum. Around 1985 I gave the drum to my brother in law and the fiberglass band was still intact. He lives in NYC but a few years ago he brought the drum to Santo Domingo, that is where it is now. I played it last year and the fiberglass band is still intact.
Gon Bops did make drums for some years that were covered on the outside with fiberglass, while the inside was unfinished wood. They sounded just like the wood drums as I remember. I haven't seen one of those drums for many years and don't know how well they held up.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby blavonski » Mon Mar 19, 2012 3:55 pm

[quote="congalou"]Work in progress !

Here is the Réquinto Prototype in ACACIA, Pretty easy to work, I think because the 20 years of drying in the barn !!
Seems to sound Hi pitched and heavy !!!!
The wood is super nice : kind of yellow with very nice drawings. I will see with the résin and varnish.

I will make a complete série of 5 sizes..

Hello Congalou,

I like your requinto there. And Acacia (european veriety)is very nice, often large, hard wood, similar in my opinion to some verieties of Ash in some ways, so It's no doubt good for Drums.
Did you mill those pieces down directly from the logs that you found in your gargage? If so, that would alsomexplain the easy workability of it. Naturally , wood is softer when it has more moisture.

I presume you know what you're doing; however, if you did mill the wood straight from those old logs, then that wood is not dry enough to make stable furniture from. Unless of course it was Green Wood, (fashioned into furnitue very soon after felling the tree), but my experience with wood for furniture making, is even after a log has been sitting for so long, it still retains much moisture, therefore it is practical to either Flat or radialy or however you like to saw the log and then let it cure for at least 6months to a year until the moisture content is reduced to what is considered workable dry wood. I also assume that, the sap wood on those logs were preety much worthless.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to express pessimism, but I think it's fair warning that, (If you're not aware), if you did infact mill those pieces down from that old log directly, you may be in for some surprises down the road, not far ahead in the form of cracks/twisting resulting from shrinkage; color change, as well as shrinkage around bolts for your plates and possible hardware carrosion from escaping moisture from the wood.

And if I were you, I would bring the remaining milled stock in doors to cure. Because that's where the drums will most likely spend the bulk of there lives when not being played outside.
But, maybe you did mill the log down 6 months ago and are just getting around to making drums from it...thought I'd wave a flag caution.

Good Luck with the wood and your drums,
Blavonski
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby congalou » Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:43 pm

Hey Blavonsky !!

Yes, I made the staves with this old wood.
In fact, ACACIA is used for "fence" for the fields because it's super resistant against humidity and moisture and it dryied in super conditions since kind of 20 years.

I have inspect each stave, and I haven't notice any bad stuff..

For the moment, it don't have fiberglass the outside and the drum don't have any problems... I think it will be OK.

G.
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Re: Congas in ACACIA wood ?

Postby Mike » Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:54 pm

blavonski wrote:I presume you know what you're doing; however, if you did mill the wood straight from those old logs, then that wood is not dry enough to make stable furniture from. [...]
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to express pessimism, but I think it's fair warning that, (If you're not aware), if you did infact mill those pieces down from that old log directly, you may be in for some surprises down the road, not far ahead in the form of cracks/twisting resulting from shrinkage; color change, as well as shrinkage around bolts for your plates and possible hardware carrosion from escaping moisture from the wood.


Honestly, Blavonski, I would say that Congalou has already made a bunch of beautiful congas
and I think he knows his stuff quite well. How many congas have you already made by the way?

Besides, as you could read in the first post, the wood has dried for 20 (!) years - there should not
be much of a problem with it I presume as it has dried thoroughly, so the remaining moisture
content should be within an acceptable range.
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