A long piece of cedar being planed smooth. Word of caution, cedar is a skin, eye and lung irritant... be careful.
A close up of the beautiful grain of the cedar.
Trimming all the pieces to the same length.
All four pieces of the "hoop" of a small cedar drum.
Angry Drum, our cajonga being glued up.
Another angle of Angry Drum being glued.
My first cajonga being glued up.
Attaching the head onto Angry Drum.
After the head is glued on, I use a flush cut bit to clean it up, too.
Mike is sanding his "Angry Drum", our attempt at a cajonga. It's really beautiful.
Mike's hands get to play the Angry Drum for the first time. It still needs to be finished.
Mike playin' his newest drum. Again, it still needs to be finished up. We couldn't wait to hear what it sounded like.
Blue2, a modern-day recreation of the original "Blue" drum, being glued up.
I have some fancy corner clamps that ensure my drums are square.
I use a flush cut bit on my router table to trim up joints.
A look at the hole grain on a 1/4" rounded plywood drum. This is why I advocate solid wood drums... but some people actually like this look.
This is an example of plywood in a butt joint. Nothin' fancy.
Mike's sanding the surfaces clean to glue the back and head onto Blue2.
The head is being glued onto Blue2.
Another angle of the head going onto Blue2. Lotsa clamps...
The "hoop" of a new double drum I'm building for a customer. The pieces have been cut, but obviously not glued.
Another angle of the pieces in the right places.
Here I'm gluing the quarter-round strips to the short faces.
Notice, when gluing the quarter-round strips, leave a little extra so you can clean it off later.
Cleaning off the extra quarter-round from the short faces. I've padded the fence with a short piece of scrap, and I work my way toward the blade with each pass until the strip and face are flush.
I had previously cut 1/8" channels in the long faces. Here I'm confirming that the baffle actually fits as I intended. I actually had to plane 1/64" off width of the baffle to make it fit into the 3/4" channels.
All the pieces of the hoop being glued up.
After the hoop is glued, I needed to clean up some of the joints to the heads would mount correctly. Using a plane is preferred, as it leaves a nice, smooth finish...
It's just not designed for cross-grain planing. Here, I botched one of my quarter-round strips. Hopefully, when I roundover the edge, those gashes will disappear.
I've drilled some holes into my table, about 18" away from the end. This provides a perfect place to put 18" drums so that clamps can be easily placed all the way around when gluing heads on. Here, I've put the 1/4" head down and put a glue bead where the hoop will be.
I've put the 1/8" head on top, followed by 1.5" of oak plywood, then clamped. The oak provides a nice sturdy, even pressure for the baffle-head connection. I don't have clamps with a 9" throat, so this works well enough to make sure the head and baffle glue up correctly.
After the heads dry, I trim off the excess using a flush-cut router bit.
After rounding and mitering corners, I sand the drum down, getting it ready for the tung oil.
This is the drum after one coat of tung oil. Multiple coats will make it even better.
I created a little stand out of a 2x4. It allows me to finish the entire drum and not worry about one side having to wait it's turn.
My first bookmatch. Curly cherry.
