Thread: Cajon - Slap Drum

Here are a couple of pics of the drum finished.

The dovetail joints in the narly River Red Gum are nice and tight with surprisingly not chipout.

I rounded all the edges to make it more user friendly.

The oil finish brings up the figure in the gum and shows up the birds eye in the Huon veneer skin.

looks nice

What does it sound like?

A best that I can describe, it sounds like a skin drum with very tight skin.

The thicker ply has a deeper tone than the thinner ply.

It still has a deep sound but not a boom like hitting the centre of a Djembe. The original, larger ply drum was close to the Djembe.

It is a clean sound - not muffled or rattling.

I hope that makes sense.

Looks great!

Is it tuned, or was the size just a product of what timber you had available?

As for the size of the sound hole, probably a bit of experimentation will tell.

Since you've already built it, cover most of the hole, and progressively remove the tape/cover and note the difference. At some point the volume and tone will drop off, go back and make the hole smaller then!

Perhaps one of the serious luthiers can provide a formula?

Cheers,

P

Wongo would be interested, he made some tongue drums.
This could be what I am after at work, looks easy enough for a weekend project.

Thanks fellas

I played with the hole and noticed an obvious change in tone with about a quarter of the opening covered.
It didn't seem to make any difference with more of the hole uncovered.
Thanks Bitingmidge.
I will wait and see if any of the musos can provide a formula.

Iain,
Yes I think it could be a good weekend project.
On the ply drum I made a hardwood frame inside the box and glued and screwed the top and sides to it.
One skin was glued to the frame so it was nearly flush.
The other skin was glued along the bottom and 2/3rds up each side. I added screws all around. The idea was to loosen the top screws so the skin would slap or rattle against the frame ( apparently popular with flamenco groups).

The River red gum drum was dovetailed.
No internal reinforcement as the ply skins provide enough strength.
I routed a recess for the ply skins and glued them in place.

The construction is different but they are both pretty simple. I think it could be easily adapted to skill level and the timber and tools available.

Hi Scally,

Ive been diving through my notes on drums and basically all Ive come up with is the variables. The size and shape of the cavity, size of soundhole, material to be banged and tenion. Not many real rules that I could find except all of the above can be the major variable. This is a double edged sword, unlimited creativity, but youre on your own to a large degree. Probably why most drums have tensioning mechanisms.

For tongue drums its different, these approximate the rules covering windchimes. Note that its the length of the tongue, not the width that matters.

Great info in the Bart Hopkins book mentioned in thread on windchimes.

Great minds huh Midge,

Sebastiaan

Thanks Sebastiaan56.

I suspected that might be the case.

Last night I took it along to a drum workshop. The teacher plays a number of different instruments and seems to be able to make anything sound good.
He liked it.

He suggested putting a set of metal tynes across the sound hole. Then it could also be played like a Kalimba.
Why not??

Any idea where I might find steel for the tynes?

This weekend I will work on another drum using rosewood and face it with quilted maple veneer.
A deeper box. This one is not really comfortable to sit on and play.
I will try a smaller sound hole.
Maybe try a loose skin on one side or see if I can add a snare??

Trial and error as you say.

Scally

For Kalimba tynes, try old hacksaw blades, smoothed of course. Ive also been told old rake tynes work well, although metal rakes are getting hard to find,

Sebastiaan

in Africa they use flattened (hammered) bicycle and motorbike spokes. Hammering them flat hardens them nicely. Hammer them so the end splays out like a flattish teaspoon handle.

Good tips.

I tried a $3 shop but they only had plastic rakes.

Bunnings have the old style metal tynes.
$14 and enough tynes to make several kalimbas plus I get a solid wooden pole.

Amazing.
Thanks Sebastiaan

Contrebasse, I never thought of bike spokes.
Some kid is going to be upset tomorrow!!
There is a bike shop down the road, maybe I can get a few old spokes from them.
I have seen kalimbas with round prongs. Just the tips were flattened.
Some has loose sleves on the prongs, between the bridges. I think this was to add a rattling sound.

There is a drum and guitar shop down the road. I will see what they have in the way of bridges.