Drum Repair: A photo-essay by Jane

 

Many of you are no doubt familiar with our 'treetrunk' drum pictured. It has two drum-heads - one on the top and a second one where a second 'trunk' had branched off of the original tree. At some point this year, the drumhead on this secondary trunk met a handcart, and the handcart rolled off the winner, leaving a tear in the skin of the drum head. Michael Van Dyke, who leads our drum circle, told us it was a simple fix - all we needed was a sufficiency of rawhide and he would undertake to fix it for us.

 

 

 

Michael examines the hide I procured. It's a rolled up piece of elk rawhide. I bought it on eBay! This photo also shows the face in the tree; the carved bearded man. He's keeping a close eye on Michael, as you can see.

 

Cutting the hide, which will then be soaked in the sink while the old hide is removed.

Removing the old skin. It's not only nailed on, it's also glued. We aren't going to use glue in the repair

The drum has "JW 91" carved in it - JW, are you out there?

Ready to go...

the new skin all wet and pliable

upholstery tacks! We reuse the old ones.

 

Do a few on one side, then S-T-R-E-T-C-H and do a few on the other side

A pair of pliers helps grip the slippery soaked skin.

Working around...

all the way around with tacks - we run out of old tacks and Michael has to make a Tack Run for more.

adding a few offset for strength

cutting away the excess hide

 

Et Voila! Drumhead repaired and ready for beating. The contrast in colors between the top head and the side is fairly stark. Feel free to run your hands over the new one, so we can minimize the difference.

 

We've been in discussions with Michael on potentially offering a drum-making workshop (not tree-trunk drums, alas!) If you're interested in attending one, send email to Jane and we'll put you on our interest-list.

 

Don't forget - Drum Circle is every Tuesday at 7 PM!