My newest build

It's been awhile since I posted, not much drum building these days. But, I finished this one! and , man, I'm happy with how it sounds! I built the shell last winter along with another maple stave and a teak one. I sold the teak shell and finished the curly maple 5 1/2 x 14 last year. I was hoping the maple snare would look and sound good, it did neither. I've been playing in a country band for awhile, trying various snares I own and nothing was doing it for me except maybe my Acrolite. Watching a you-tube video of Emmy Lou Harris and Rodney Crowell playing "Invitation to the Blues" on Austin City Limits, I dug the drummer, Jerry Roe. On further investigation, I discovered he's playing a 7x14 Craviotto maple snare tuned kinda low. I tried to get my 5 1/2 Vaunghn Craft steamed maple to sound like it to no avail. Then I noticed the the unfinished 7x14 southern yellow pine shell, hanging up on the shell rack. I'd been saving some Kent bass drum lugs for this drum and I added the leather gaskets under the lugs since the shell was slightly too small.(I've got no way to measure for outside diameter as I'm routing down the shell in my router jig). I took apart the failed maple drum to use the nice Trick throw and butt and cut some 1/8 inch snare beds, put on a hazy Ambassador on the bottom and an Evans with a power dot under and SWEET! Big fat sound with the top head low and the resonant slightly higher and the snares tight. Not bad and she looks good and, smells good.
I've decided since I have too many drum sets, to sell the Kents, although I do like the bass drum. Here's some pics.

what would you pay?

No new pictures, but a few things to talk about. First off, tuning, which is an ongoing adventure. As the man says; tune a lot and tune often. I came across a U-Tube video by Rob Brown on tuning which was a breath of fresh air. Got my toms and bass drums sounding really good, with the wrinkles just go away technique. Rob distills this known technique down to it's basics and it works well for me. The snare style, with the reso head very tight and the batter what ever is pretty cool also. I'm still dialing it in with how much is too much with the reso head, but it works well with the looser batter heads , which I seem to favor these days. These tunings compliment my snare builds and the quieter playing I love with Biscuit City, my country, blues and roots band. I'm still using coated Ambassadors on the toms and snare, to which I can add rings or some plumbers putty for dampening. It's better to have the drums resonate and add dampening than to start with dampened drums, more versatile, depending on the sound of the room.
   As much as I love my old Ludwigs, with the 20 inch bass drum, I've been going with the Gretsch's and the 22 inch bass drum. Bigger sound when I need it and they sound good at low volume as well. I hope to add a rims mount to the 13 inch tom as the snare stand dampens the tone too much, no matter how I position the drum in the basket. I think rims mount are ugly but the tone is the thing. I find it's so very important to me to have my drums sound good to me, to inspire my playing, even though, this might not be the case to the listener. Some say the over ringing tone, sounds the best in the audience. Am I supposed to train my ear to accept this, for the better audience sound? I haven't had any negative feedback yet. So I'll continue using the rings on the heads.
   Playing has been generally more satisfying as time goes along but there are still plenty of areas to improve on. My confidence level is low on endings, especially rock and blues. I need to work on these but how? Some times I think a teacher might help, but who? Being so ADD and unfocused in a teaching situation doesn't help either, but I'll get there some how. Keeping it simple but sophisticated, is still the best goal, in all aspects of playing. Taste and feeling has gotten me this far. Another area to work on is brush playing. How to rock and groove with brushes, like George Recelli, who plays with Dylan on Dylan's latest, Tempest. Love it.
  A lot of drummers would agree with me that most bands tend to play too loud. It's very tricky to keep all the levels in check with dynamics and listening. Somebody turns up a bit for what ever reason, then someone else follows suit and pretty soon the drummer, who is usually unmiked, can't hear himself. When everyone is listening and keeping the lid on, it sounds wonderful. I'll keep on playing appropriately and hope for the best.
  There is so much great music being made out there on all kinds of wonderful instruments, hand made or commercial, check it out!

Pictures and blab about newest snare builds

•  Quilted Maple stave w/ oil finish, old Gretsch lugs, new trick strainer. This shell is about 1/2 inch thick, which is about as thin as I dare go. Fine and mellow sound. Currently my favorite gigging drum.

•  Southern Yellow Pine stave with clear finish, kent lugs, pearl strainer. This one surprised me with it's bright metallic sound. Love it for rim shots and lots of snare.

•  Mahogany stave with Gretsch Catalina lugs and strainer. Hoped for more but kind of boring. Probably a very narrow sweet spot that I just haven't found yet.

•  This is from last year but love these Kent conversions. Started as a 60's Kent 14 floor tom, cut down to 3 3/4 inches with either  maple or ash re-rings. Kent lugs with my usual leather gaskets. This one sports a brass air hole grommet thats really some plumbing part I found at Lowes . I installed an old muffler I had, really handy, why don't you see these anymore?

• Same as above but with a yellow stain. These drums sound good tuned anyway but love them tuned up abit. Not loud enough to cut through amped band mix without a mike. I like 8 lug snares but with the usual three arm snare stands, there's always a poor fit at one of the lugs, life's tough.

Whats been going on.

Well it's been awhile, has in it. I'm well known as a lazy (sporadic) communicator. I went crazy and bought some drums and drum stuff. Let me tell you about it.
   Finished the quilted maple shell, 5.5 x 14. Had a hard time routing the inside on my jig and managed to cut a couple of diggers into the shell. Oh well, can't sell it like that but decided to finish it and see what happens. I stained it with a mid toned maple color and sealed it with shellac. Then did the French polish thing. Looks pretty and warm with the nice figure showing thru. I'd bought some old Gretsch snare lugs on e-bay, so I installed them with some gaskets I made, put my new Trick strainer and butt on and tuned her up with new heads. Bummer, it sounds choked. Back tracking, I thought it might have been the epoxy sealer I used because of the glue starved joints. Or is it the bearing edge, or the snare beds? I'm still not sure. I'll continue fooling with it later. The Trick strainer is quite different from other strainers I've used, but I like the click stop adjustability. I thought I was buying the three position model bought no, this is the regular one. Maybe I'll try it on the next shell.
  Backing up just abit, the pitch pine shell I built was the revelation of the fall. It sounded fantastic, lots of resonance and ring, like a metal shell. It's become my favorite to gig with, tuned in a midrange. So I built another pitch pine shell, this one deeper (6.5inch) and had better luck routing the outside but had to shape the inside by hand. I'm french polishing this one too.
  Anthony at Village Drum www.thevillagedrumandmusic.com agreed to display and consign my teak shell, to see if any builders might be interested. I bought a couple of Dream cymbals from him, which I recommend to any cymbal lover. Great guy and very knowledgeable about drums, especially vintage drums.

  Which brings me to my most exciting acquisition, 79-80 Gretsch drum set. I have a 71 jazz set that I love, was my primary set for years. I found a rock set on Craigslist, called the fellow and went and bought the kit. Sizes are 22, 13 ,16. The shells were covered in contact paper, which when peeled off, revealed clear finished maple underneath. I filled all the various holes with bungs of maple, scraped,sanded and stained blue, followed with clear spray lacquer. They came with old Slingerland hoops which I'm switching out for the die-cast COB Gretsch hoops. Cleaned all the lugs and re-installed with new t-rods. The bass drum t-rods were a mess, but I was able to bend them back into shape. With new heads the bass drum sounds good. The mounted tom sings with a Emperor head sitting in a WFL snare stand. The floor tom needs the die-cast hoops to sound right. They're 75 bucks a pop on e-bay! Need to sell a snare drum. These are all six ply shells and sound like no other, very well made at this rather late date for Gretsch. Looking forward to gig with them. Here's some lame pics.

  Another fun project was turning a funky Kent snare shell with vestiges of glue and wrap, into a nice restored six lug drum. I used a yellow die stain and French polish.

Pitchpine, teak, mahogany.

 Maple staves have been ripped on the tablesaw.

 Next, they go thru the jointer, to be brought down to the exact width.

Router jig for turning the outside.

Finally got the stave shell router fixture working. It cuts the outside of the faceted glued up shell quite well. Cutting the inside is still problematic, but with the right router bit, I'm still optimistic. I built a pitch pine shell that smells great but may prove to be a dud sonically. I sprayed some clear laq. on it and I'm ready to drill for lugs but I discovered it's really too small in diameter. I'll go ahead and finish it but I'll have to use thick pads under the lugs and it'll be tricky seating the heads, oh well. I've got a beautiful quilted maple stave 5 1/2x14 in the works now. Not sure how I'll deal with the inside yet.

I've yet to come up with a way of measuring the O.D. of the shell while it's in the jig as I'm routing. Maybe a large caliper, I could make one. Hmmm. The ultimate in size has the head fitting exactly, not too tight, not too loose


My unfinished shell inventory: 6x14 mahogany, 6x14 teak, 6x14 pitch pine.

In the top picture, the order is reversed.

Some random drum stuff

Building projects have slowed down some. Finished the Kent with the blue/green stain and took it to New Orleans as a house gift for Nancy and Ben. Nancy has this cool front room with all kinds of Art and lots of percussion instruments. I always felt a snare drum would look good in there. Snares are central to the Nola sound. I'm honored to have one in that town, although it should get played. I resisted putting re-rings on this shell as it was very round to begin with and I thought it should sound open and brash with lots of overtones. I kept the bearing edges rounded like the original, but turned it into an 8 lug drum. I had some newer generic lugs kicking around and added my usual leather gaskets. Included with the drum was a pair or hickory sticks I'd made awhile back. Like an idiot, I didn't take a picture of the finished product!
Some other projects are French polishing the teak stave shell(ongoing). Complete clean up of an 90's Yamaha sd 296 which is like a Supraphonic with a parallel type snare arrangement, very heavy steel shell, ten lugs and heavy triple flange hoops. Haven't driven it yet, we'll see. Out in the barn I'm working on a 13 inch Kent tom shell that was poorly glued up to begin with. I've worked some glue into the gaps and trued up the shell on the table saw and then the sanding board. I stripped off the wrap and who knows how I'll finish the nice maple.
My friend Mike Labelle posted a picture of his new "old" set of tubs with a 26 inch bass drum and toms made from old marching snare drums. Very cool and inspiring. My old 26 inch maple George Stone bass drum needs a good sanding, some finish, hardware, heads and some spurs. Things to look forward to.
As I improve as a player, I find I can play a more relaxed style that begs for a big, resonant set of drums in a reverby room. Recently I've seen some You Tube clips of Jay Bellerose who epitomises this style, also Dylan's drummer, George Recelli comes to mind. Old fashion sound with todays sensibilities.

Some thoughts on tuning snare drums

I've been tuning snares a little differently lately. Dunnett says to find the fundamental note of the shell and tune the bottom head to that note. My Vaughncraft steam bent birdseye maple with nickle over brass hardware,(die-cast hoops), positively sings now. Great for New Orleans stylee. I tuned the top head medium high to get a nice bounce to the stick and a timbale like ring with rim shots. I leave the snares as loose as possible so as to not choke the resonant head. My latest Kent shelled drums benefit from this tuning as well. If resonance is the quest for a drum then Dunnett's idea makes sense, get the shell and heads all working together. Finding the note of my shells is a little tricky, so many overtones, but by hanging them up and using my knuckle to rap lightly and using a tuner, I've been able to find the note. I'm writing it in the shell.
   Drum tuning is endlessly fascinating, the slightest changes in tension can make all the difference.
   The biggest surprise lately was a 5x14 Kent orange sparkle six lug shell, given to me by my buddy Anthony from The Village Drum and Music. I was going to peel off the wrap but decided not to because I do love orange sparkle and it cleaned up really well. So I recut the very messed up bearing edges and finished them, all by hand (My shop was too cold). I had to remove alot of meat, 3/16, from each edge. It looked like someone had at them with a jackknife! I ended up using a double 45 edge instead of the usual roundover. After putting on some lugs, hoops, throw and butt with some old heads, I tuned it and wow, it sounded great, strong and tight, not too tinny and weak like my other Kents without re-rings. Why I'm not sure, maybe the different edges, maybe it's just the maple in this drum. Every piece of wood is slightly different.
   Another old Kent shell is in the pipeline, this one another 5x14 six lug that I removed the wrap from and bunged all the holes. Jack Moore gave me this one. I'd fixed it up and never really liked it very much. So now I'll try it with eight lugs and maybe fool with the bearing edges, but no re-rings for now. Alot of scraping and sanding finally got rid of the wrap glue residue and I stained the shell with a blue green analine die with some red oil color rubbed in to funk it up a bit. I've discovered the joys of french polish this winter. Just shellac, alcohol and a little olive oil, gives a rich deep glossy to semi-gloss finish which brings out the wood grain like nothing else. You rub it in over a couple of coats of shellac, slowly building up the finish, in sessions, with a days drying in between sessions. The smells are pleasent unlike most finishes. After awhile I've got this beautiful finish that only needs protecting with some wax.
   Snare drum sound can be so allusive, very subjective and constantly changing, with room accoustics, weather and my mood! Small changes in the relationship of the heads, can greatly affect the sound. Mid range tuning is usually the best but some styles dictate a higher or lower tuning. For funk, I like to tune up, for blues, down.

Vaughan Craft maple shell with old Ludwig hardwareAdd

60's Kent shellAdd