congaplace.com

Here's another interesting drum. A Requinto that used to be an Oak barrel. I got it as payment for some repair work on a set of vintage GBs I did for a friend who's very good friends with Apache'. it's retrofitted with JCR hardware. I changed the tuning lugs to Manito Percussion. I had trouble tuning it with the original ones. They're getting re-threaded to be put back on. I know in Cuba everything used to be shipped in barrels so they had plenty of them to make Congas. That's why I suspect it might be. My friend bought it from a guy who worked for Cali at JCR hence the hardware. Thanks for any input gentlemen. It's always appreciated.

A beauty of a drum, likely French oak, charred on the inside of the stave.
Since oak, and other domestic hardwoods are not really grown on the
islands the folks from the islands recycled drum barrels and wood crates.
I remember growing in Puerto Rico we had this "cuatro" luthier that used
the wood from shipping crates to make "cuatros" and guitars.