Thread: Dun duns

The staves fitted together pretty well.

I was a bit generous with the glue but I was more concerned with good glue contact than squeeze out.

Heck, there's no stopping you Scally! You'll be exporting to Africa soon!

Thanks but I think everyone in Africa must be making drums and now Bali is in on the act.
They are too cheap to buy to consider selling a drum.

It is just interesting for me to work out how to make them.

I was really pleased with the clean bevels cut on the table saw. And the joiner gave a good gluing surface.

I was pretty worried about how this would turn out.
With 30 staves, any error is multiplied.
Then gluing up 30 slippery bevels sounded like a nightmare.

So far it looks OK.
Now to see how the sanding goes.

I think the bigger drums should be harder timber and I will use wider boards.

Any suggestions on using veneer or ply?

A much more "environmentally friendly" way of building

Much the same way they used to build wine barrels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_%28profession%29

Keep up the excellent work!

Any chances of sound files of your great looking instruments?

This is how I built my dun's a few years back,
Light wood is fine for the bigger ones keeps the weight down when you have to lug them
Oil Cans are also great for duns, I have built in 60 litres and 205 litres.
The 60 litre in particular is good for a strap hung drum.

Yes Mongrel, that is what they say.
I wouldn't like to blame drums for deforestation though.
Once I have percussion sorted I might try one of your guitars.

A sound bite would be a good idea.
How do I get one and put it on here?

Jeff, do you think the western red cedar will be strong enough?
It doesn't feel very rigid.
Should I put a support ring inside the rims?
I could rout the inside rims to neat circles and put either a short stave ring or a couple of bands of ply on the inside?

One of the girls at drumming has a set of big plastic drums for dunduns. They have a big sound and you can hit them as hard as you like.

IMHO if you are 16mm thick it will be fine.
On my kenkeni about the dia of yours I went to 13mm as I recall in meranti
the skin and rings hold it all together.

And for your next project, why not try a pandiero?

http://www.pandeiro.com/products.php?cat=7

I just discovered them. They look and sound pretty cool.

Thanks Jeff
I hope you are right. It just doesn't feel very strong.

I have a Tassis oak board, 19mm, that I might try for the bigger drums. The plan is to use wider boards, maybe 65mm. That would give me 12 boards for a 12 inch diameter.
Less joints and stronger timber.
It will be heavier but shouldn't be too bad as Tassie oak isn't real heavy.

The Western Red cedar and lots of little faces made it easy to sand to a reasonably smooth round.

Great idea Contre.
I could just slice 5cm off the end of this one!!

Funny really, I was going to make it about 10cm longer then trim it to length. I just didn't have quite enough WRC, so only made it about 5cm over the finished length.

If you send me some bottle tops for the brass jingles, I will see if I can bend a few strips of ply/veneer into a Pandeiro!!

I have noticed that you can put a 100k zip file as an attachment. Maybe a zipped mp3?
Or you could go the whole hog and put a video on youtube or something like that.
I haven't seen any "audio hosting" sites like photobucket that don't seem a bit dodgy, but I'll keep looking

I will see if I can find someone with a video recorder.

The glue up went fine.

I took off the high spots with the little block plane then it sanded to a reasonably smooth surface.

I will try some tassie oak for a bigger drum and I bought a 15 degree bevel router bit. This might give better mating bevels.

The router bit was a pain.
It didn't cut cleanly and wanted to chatter.

The angle didn't work out either. So I adjusted and cleaned the bevels up on the jointer.
The final diameter is 34cm. It can be the middle size Dundun, called the Sangban.

Twelve bigger and heavier boards were trickier clamping together. Once I had a strap on them they were more manageable.

I marked a circle on each end then planed the high points to give a reasonable curve. I used the Rotex with 50 grit to further refine the curve.
It needs more shaping but with time it should be OK.

This one feels much stronger and I think it should be strong enough to support the skins.
Yes Jeff, it is heavy but I wont be carrying it around all the time.

Lookin Good scally
Cant tell how you are clamping for the glueup but I found that a loops of rope, tied loosely with a bit of broomstick handle twisted though each loop really tightened it well.
Consider carefully the sound you want from each size drum when deciding on skins. I found the cowhide too rigid on my kenkeni and ended up replacing one end with a used but thick goatskin.
Jeff

I didn't try to get a lot of pressure on the ropes.
The main aim was to get all the staves evenly together.
The occy straps were pulled tight but they don't have a lot of power.

The straps have a ratchet and can put a fair bit of pressure on. I put them on last, after the rubber straps had it all evenly together. Even then I didn't wind them up too tight. I would say 'firm' pressure. There was no gaps between the boards and the edges were even.

I have looked at a lot of dundun sets and there is a lot of variation in the drums.
I am going up by about 5cm diameter for each drum.
The lengths will be 50cm to 60cm to 70cm.
I am hoping this will give reasonable steps between the three. We'll see.

A really big one would be fun!!

The kenkeni seems too small to have a thick cow skin. Tonight at drumming I will check their set and have a talk to Benjie. My feeling, like you, is that the goat skin would be better.