Vintage Gon Bops - a new project!

[bongosnotbombs]

In an earlier thread that question was asked, it seemed it is possibly an evolution/ mispronunciation of the word "armor", an alma serves as "armor" for your drum.

[blango]

serious thred crash here...

will repost under gon bops rebuild soon..

Tony

[Chupacabra]

Sooo...
How's the reno going on the congas? I'm interested to see how things are going! After all this discussion at least give us an update!

[bongosnotbombs]

Yah, will do, give me a bit!

[bongosnotbombs]

Been a little slack getting around to this project, but I've started on the bearing edge.
50 grit sandpaper double sided taped to a 12" x 12" tile sample worked great.
Had to do it sitting on my front steps, sure got some strange looks from the Haight st. crowd...

still plenty of work to do but at least I've started.

[bongosnotbombs]

I've been busy playing these.

[Chupacabra]

That's a really nice set you of congas you have there, I bet they sound fantastic!
Getting motivated to work on drums is the hard part but once you get started it's hard to stop, isn't it? Next thing you know it's 3:30 in the morning and it's time to get up for work in 3 hours!

[bongosnotbombs]

Spent some more time on this thing today, I'm actually
gluing up some of the cracks while we speak.

I rasped the inside edge to an angle, then rounded everything out with
a sanding sponge. It's nice and smooth and pretty even too.

It's funny though, working on this Gon Bops, the staves, some are thicker than
others, which makes getting a really even bearing edge difficult. I'm happy with
what I got, it's 100 times better than what it was...

It's kind of weird doing your woodwork and stuff on a city sidewalk, but then
again there are weirder things seen in the Haight everyday.

Before

[Chupacabra]

That quinto is turning out really nice - even beautiful! That last pic of the naked shell posing in the sunlight with the crown and hoop lowered like that... grrrowwwrrr....! Seriously though, once you're finished with that drum it will be good for another 40 or so years. Maybe someone will want to recondition it all over again at that age too!

[bongosnotbombs]

A friend of mine has a very similar quinto. Same Philipine mahogany, but
hers has a fiberglass coating on the shell, and the "teardrop" or early comfort rim
style.

Anyways she asked me to change the skin on it for her. The old skin was very thick and
she couldn't tighten it enough to get the right pitch a quinto should have.

So I've had her drum today and thought it would be interesting to compare the untouched
quinto of my friends with my refurbishing project.

The two drums side by side. Mine with "International" hardware, hers with "Teardrop"

[bongosnotbombs]

So I took the crown off and WTF!! The drum had turned GREEN!

My only guess is there has been some sort of reaction to the metal of the crown,
which hangs down over the shell, like comfort curve rims do. Weird.

I compared the two bearing edges. The old Gon Bops edge on my friends drum
was very flat, only a very slight angle to it and the edges rounded just a touch.

The new edge on my drum is more rounded and more of an angle, I was kind of following
the advice given to me in this post. Also I had to take my drum down about 1" to correct the
disaster caused by the previous owner.

[bongosnotbombs]

So this is a cool drum, and my friend had gotten a very cool skin
for it, which came from Mathew Smith.

I have never changed a skin on a drum with this kind of a crown, and it
was for a friend so I really didn't want to F@#* it up you know what I mean.

But actually this drum was the easiest skin I have ever changed. I think it's because
the lug loops hang down so low it was easy to hook the lugs into it.

I've kind of let the crown stay high, and put a tiny bit more tension than usual,
because I want her to be able to tune this high like it should be without running out
of threads. The lug loops on this crown are so low.

[bongosnotbombs]

All done and drying in the sun...

This one is for you Chupacabra!

[Tonio]

Good job BNB!!
It must be hard to relegate time for another drum while your Valje's be calling you

T

[Chupacabra]

Mi Amoré
She's a thing of beauty! I guess if the drum is a quinto I should refer to it as a "he". In this case it should be "What a hunk!" Regardless, you have yourself one fine quinto, and collection of tumbadoras, for sure. From what I've seen in past photos, there's no reason why this shouldn't be fine sounding instrument. Give us the scoop when you've brought that baby to life!