skin tension

[congalou]

I have seen on a old magazine that tension on a conga with a quite thick skin is about 8 ton

To my mind, it's too much, do some guys have any info ??

Galou.

[Anonimo]

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR

[Joseph]

I always wondered about actual quantifiable tension on conga skin head.

8 tons seems very high for a conga
That is 16,000 lbs…that’s a lot…an order of magnitude 32 times greater than the 500 lbs for a snare as stated by leedy2

Drum Dial is another similar instrument to the tama. They have a website that does a better job of explaining how it works.
http://www.drumdial.com/

The dial measure of the gauge measures Tympanic Pressure.
I couldn’t find a good definition of tympanic pressure, so I asked Drumdial.

Their reply:
“ Drumdial works very well for tuning congas and bongos.
The main consideration is to make sure during head selection that the heads are shaven as evenly as possible (on natural skins). Uniform head thickness on synthetic heads is not an issue.
Tympanic pressure is the relative tension of the drum head. The numbers on the drumdial are tympanic pressure and relates directly to Newtons per centimeter, the metric standard for tension as it relates to direct force per the distance traveled.
The only way that I can simply state this would be that it would be similar to pushing your finger onto the drum head (knowing the exact force applied) and measuring how far your finger pressed into the drum head. I hope that this answers your questions."

The suggested tunings for different drums(obviously directed at drumset) as shown on DrumDial website range between 75-90 Newtons per centimeter.
http://www.drumdial.com/drummer.htm


Using this website
http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/units/pressure/pressure.ncmsq.en.html
I think in feet, inches, pounds, so…
We can see that 1 Newton/Centimeter = 1.45 Pounds / Square Inch.

You can use the page for metric calculations also.

Take the highest drumdial reading & multiply by the above numbers and we get
Tympanic Pressure of drum head converted to PSI:

90 X 1.45 Lb/Sq In = 130.5 Lb / Sq In

Remember these numbers are not a direct measure of the combination forces (lugs & rim) pulling the skin down from all directions, but a measure of how much force it takes to deflect the skin a given amount. Read the DrumDial response above, to understand the concept.

If you used a torque wrench to measure torque when tuning skin by tightening conga lugs, I imagine the value would not be very great.
As you crank skin tighter it becomes moderately harder to turn wrench, but if torque (the force required to turn wrench…and transmitted pulling force acting on drumhead) were to increase to hundreds of pounds, you would need a 2-3 foot long wrench just to turn the lug nut.