Skin Thickness Characteristic

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Re: Skin Thickness Characteristic

Postby jorge » Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:21 pm

Thebreeze wrote:jorge said....."Sanding the underside of the skin makes it thinner in the middle which does not optimize the sound."
I don't understand how sanding the underside makes the skin thinner in the middle unless whoever sands it does not do it uniformly. You have to make sure that you do it " UNIFORMLY " so that the entire surface of the underside gets sanded equally. I have done this several times with different heads to date and I can only say that I have had great results. We all have different experiences and results so while someone has bad results, others have good results.

The key word you used is "uniformly", which can be tricky. The mistake I made sanding the underside of a conga skin the first couple of times about 35 or 40 years ago was to sand across the diameter of the skin and rotate it. Each sanding stroke went across the center of the skin, but started and ended in a different area of the outside part of the skin near the bearing edge. Imagine making a lot of Xs using the diameter of the circle, all lines pass through the center but they are much farther apart around the outer edges. So the center part got much more sanding than the outer parts and wound up thinner than the outer parts. Those skins sounded terrible when I put them back on the drum. Finally I figured out that to remove thickness evenly over the whole area of the skin, I had to make an effort to sand the outer parts as much as the center part. It still did not work as well as choosing a skin of the right thickness for the drum from the beginning. The sanded skin, which is kind of soft and fuzzy underneath, seemed to sound different, project less, and be harder to play than a skin of the right thickness that has not been sanded. It has been many years since I did this and I don't remember more details, but I did decide to stop doing it. Choosing the right thickness skin for a particular drum is a skill that needs to be developed by trial and error over a long period of time and trial and error with skins can get expensive especially at current prices.
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Re: Skin Thickness Characteristic

Postby Thebreeze » Mon Jan 28, 2013 2:35 am

jorge..... I appreciate your input, and I read it very thouroghly and found it to be very sound advice as well. Uniformly is definitely the key word, when sanding the underside of the head, and as far as fuzzy texture when finished sanding, I have never had that. My heads feel nice and smooth, in many respects, just as smooth as the top of the skin. I guess it depends what grit sandpaper you use. I guess what we can come away with this is that if you find yourself with a skin that is too thick for that certain drum and want to make it work without spending for a new skin, why not try it. If anything it will be a great learning experience. I definitley agree with you as well when you mention the prices of skins these days. From my experiences the norm is about 50 dollars more or less and that can add up real fast if you have to buy two or three skins before you get the one you really like. I myself have not even come close to picking out the right skin the first time, and for most of us we get them delivered sight unseen anyway.

p.s... thanks for sharing your experiences with the sanding so many years ago. I thought I was one of the first to try it. shows you that there is nothing new under the sun. haha.
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Re: Skin Thickness Characteristic

Postby Kaban » Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:24 am

Thanks for sharing, every bit of information helps.
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Re: Skin Thickness Characteristic

Postby Ebongo » Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:18 pm

I prefer medium for tumba and conga, and thick for requinto for a drier tone for rumba, but not too thick. Natural cow skin. Also, when not in use my drums are tuned down just enough before it starts to produce any ringing sound, so that the head keeps its shape with the bearing edge. Often I enjoy a low tuned sound, which less pressure is better for the shell and bearing edge in the long term, [but my Mopercs don't require that extra care, since they're built like tanks anyway].

JohnnyConga wrote:Here it is nice and simple...thick heads go on the tumbadora then medium thick for the conga and thin for the quinto...period...
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