Skin Sagging - How to correct Sagging Skin

[bongosnotbombs]

I guess Japanese taiko drums still use tacks for their heads. Maybe some info there, that style is gaining in popularity, probably a similar process.

[BMac]

I'm going to answer my own question and add a little more info/content to a now somewhat well-discussed topic.

So what's the problem with skin sagging? I played sunday for a couple of hours on my sagged tumba. Whether or not the sagging reduces under tension, there is always some sagging. I concentrated on playing that tumba while a friend played conga (segundo). As I played, I asked myself: So what's the problem?
Here's what I came up with. I beat up my hands more than necessary. The dip in the skin makes me reach down and through the plane defined by the bearing edge. The sag was considerable ... perhaps a millimeter deep at its worst. That's a lot when you consider that our hands don't likely typically move the skin that far when they strike the head. I don't want to over-intellectualize this. I just came to the conclusion that the drum sounds fine but I could feel the slight gap just as my hands touch the head and I could feel my hand settling into that gap. The feeling wasn't good ... it felt needlessly violent on my hands. I think this issue finally came up for me because I am finally getting around to trying to use more muffled/closed tones. Who says slaps are the hardest sound to master? I think I used to say that ... hmmm ... I don't know about that anymore. Using muffled/closed tones, having them sound like a drum sound and not just some kinda bucket thud sound, is tough. In any event, I resolved to fix the sagging on both my tumba (a Matador), and my conga (a CP) ... hey don't bust my chops here, these aren't my best drums but they sound pretty darn good anyway with good skins!

So I tried the upside down fix. I removed the skins, re-hydrated them, and put them back on the drums. Each is upside down right now on a flat plywood piece with a stretched plastic bag between the plywood and the skin. It seems that all is going well. Each skin seems to be drying nice and flat.

Now here's a little more info/content on this subject.
I stretched hides on a dununba and they sagged inwardly. The thing sat sideways as the skins dried so gravity wasn't to blame. I always wax the bearing edges of drums when I mount skins and yet have run into sagging. Someone here suggests that sticking at the edge causes sag ... I differ with that belief. I also am wary of using tension to keep the skin flat ... it's just too likely to over-stretch the skin and end up with too deep a mounting. I fully believe now in earlier posts suggesting that the differing drying rates on the two sides of the skin cause the sagging. And I'm a believer in the upside-down drying technique so the underside of the skin dries faster because it is exposed to air, and the drying tension would promote bulging (the opposite of sagging) but for the fact that the drum is upside down on a planar surface ... so it dries flat ... beautiful ... thank you to those who offered that advice.

Okay, right-right ... that's not really new info/content ... so here I offer a way to hydrate a skin along the playing surface and bearing edge without hydrating the skin that grips the hoop. You don't want to hydrate the skin that grips the hoop because it might slip away from the hoop and you'll be grabbing at it with a plier and trying to keep the skin engaged. So this is how I re-hydrated the already formed skins without taking risks.

I floated the formed skins upside down in my bathtub. They floated around like happy little boats. The hoop-engaging portions of the skins sat high and dry above the water level. I poured a little water into each little boat to hydrate the skin opposite the playing side. This gave the boats a little payload, and sunk them into the water a little bit to be sure to hyrdrate a little beyond the bearing edge. It worked great. The playing surfaces and bearing edges were hydrated without any real risk of hoop-slipping. I'm going with finger tension on the lugs only ... I don't want to pull the skin too deep. I'll go with this technique anytime in the future when I'm trying to remount/reform any pre-mounted/pre-formed head.

I made sure that Machu-Picchu, the two-headed dragon that ceaselessly battles the bengal tiger family in their speedboats when my two-year old son takes a bath, stayed away from from the floating skins as they hydrated. He's alway flipping boats over and causing havoc when he can. Bad dragon!

Cheers
BMac

[Congadelica]

bMAC ,
Thats pretty much the way I do it , with the sagging .with regards to the boats in the bath entertaining little story my friend.

marco