by jorge » Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:53 pm
Careful, old Gon bops drums are made of fairly soft mahogany wood and the hardware is not that strong. I had a real old (1972) gon bops quinto and the person who has it now put a super thick cowhide on it. The hardware bent and it feels like the shell would crack if it were tuned up to quinto pitch. He uses it for a small tumbador and it sounds really dull. Maybe in another 40 years the skin will break in.
2 things you can do are: 1) mount it a bit high, let it dry and sand it or, better, scrape, it thinner when it is dry, scraping only the bottom flat area of the entire skin out to the inside of where the bearing edge starts, not touching from the inside of the bearing edge circle outward. You can use a pocket knife to scrape the dry skin thinner. It takes some elbow grease and do it where the dust you generate won't be a problem. Don't breathe the muleskin dust, it can cause serious allergies. Keep examining the skin to see how thin it is getting, although I have never managed to scrape a skin too thin. Or 2) when the skin is wet, mount it very high and gently and very carefully crank it down while wet until the skin turns opaque. You will know you went too far if the skin rips. Seriously, this is tricky and I would only recommend it if you have done it before and can't make any other use of the super thick skin. The scraping method is much safer and leaves the most stressed side areas of the skin thicker, a good thing. Also, use some grease or wax lube on the bearing edge to minimize resistance and force on the tuning lugs. Mounting higher than usual is also a good way to minimize force on the hardware and shell. If you get it right and the shell and hardware hold, the skin will last forever (almost), as long as you don't abuse it.