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Today I bought a old Meinl "live sound" conga.
One with the tag "made in Germany".
I bought it very cheap with a standard for it.
It will be a present for a girlfriend who wants to learn how to play conga but only has a djembe.
So I decided to surprise her with this conga and give it to her coming monday.
I cleaned the skin, quite old but looks a lot nicer now.
Cleaned the hard ware with tin paper.

This conga has a semi split. only visible from the outside. ( I knew this when I bought it).
It seems the "split" is right where you want to have it if you have one.
It doessent effect the sound it seems, its not fully split !

What to do ?
What would you do ?


Leave it the way it is ?
brake the split open and glue it strap it?
Or try to open the semi split carefuly not making it a full split en squeeze some glue in strap it

Monday doesn't leave much time. So if it sounds ok maybe say "surprise" ! and tell her you are gonna fix that little split thingy soon and reap the rewards of being an awesome boyfriend.

My thoughts, too. For the time being I would leave the crack like it is.
Chances are that it might stay like that for a long time.
You could tell her it is just a cosmetic flaw (which it actually is),
and if need should be you can fill that semi split with epoxy glue,
making sure there is no mess (the problem is that the original red
color might be marred). Strapping and glueing could even lead
to further cracks in my opinion.

By the way, nice score, those older Meinls are really good drums.
And I was very impressed by your muled-up Meinl!
P.S.: How are "my" Reiches doing?

thanks guys, I left the conga the way it was.
I actually gave here the conga last Saturday.
My friend was speechless, .................................

The best thing is to give when you can.

The meinl Mules are doing well.
They went out in nature where I did a small workshop with some of my friends.
Learning to play umbanda rhythms in a group.
It was really good to have a agogo playing along.

Mike, the reiches really, they did not get much time yet.
I love them but haven't played them much at all.
Thats just the burden of having a collection of tubs.