Thread: Dun duns

Yes Jeff, it must be good to know everything. I wish I knew more.

All the duns tonight has cow skin and the kenkeni was small.
Probably 20-cm diameter and maybe 30cm long.
The other two were 30cm and 40plus cm diameter and 40cm and 50cm long.
Shorter than most others I have seen.

They do go up in even increments. That might be important in getting the set to work together.

Now I need some more timber to make the Dundunba.

saw a busker on the way to uni today playing a cajon, made me think of you and the instruments you make. nice to see one being played. sounded nice too. didnt look nearly as nice as yours though.

I haven't made a sound clip yet but have a listen to some of this:

http://www.jabaru.com.au/indigo.htm

I saw them at the Tamworth Country Music Festival a couple of years ago and loved the sound.

The song I play too much is
Tribe of the Dun Dun on the Jabaru album

I bought a small welder, 8mm steel rods and after a bit of practice I have welded up some rings.
They are rough welds but feel like they will hold.

I made a ply form to bend them to a ring then clamped it up to weld.

The two drum shells have been cut to length and the rings shaped for the skin.

I dry cow skin arrived today.

Now the shells need a good sand and a finish of coconut oil before I attempt to attach the skins.

The rings have been gal sprayed to minimise rusting.

Next they are wrapped in cotton ribbon to protect the skin.

The shells have been sanded to 240 grit.

I decided to stain them so they would look similar and it worked out pretty well.

Coconut oil brought out the colour and grain nicely,

Next is tying the ropes to the rings, cutting and soaking the cow skin and seeing if I can wrestle it all together.

Mmmmmm beef flavoured drums

Look great, that coconut oil seems to bring out the grain great. Does it set? Or does it stay slippery?

What kind of coconut oil Scally? suntan lotion? and as Mongrel asked does it polymerise?

Mongrel, you could use tallow for beef flavour, lard for pork and suntan lotion for you know what flavour....

I must admit I did feel a little awkward going into a Health Food shop and asking for Coconut Oil for a drum.

These people tend to have a broader/alternative outlook on life. After a puzzled look for a few seconds she was very interested and helpful.

Strangely it doesn't smeel like a beach or a beverage, just a slight smell of coconut.

It is solid in the jar but softens with a little rubbing and spreads well onto the timber.

I sat the drums in the weak winter sun for a few hours and the outside was dry to the touch.
It now feels hard and dry like any other oil finish.

More than likely it will continue to soak into the timber and evaporate over time so probably would need to be reapplied from time to time.

After several frustrating hours I have managed to get the skin on one drum. I will continue to tighten the ropes as it dries.

I have decided that I need more clearance on the rings to allow for the ropes and double skin thickness. So it is back to the angle grinder and welder before I attempt to skin the second drum.

Cheers/Aloha

The first drum is now assembled.

The steel rings were covered in tape to protect the skin/
One ring holds the skin against the drum and the second pulls the skin against the first ring, locking the skin. The verticle ropes pull the top and bottom outer rings together to tighten the wet skin.

The skin is cut wider than neded to make it easier to assemble.
The rings were too tight a fit once the rope and skin thickness were added.
I had to use a mallet to hammer the rings into place and to keep them level on the drum.

Once it was fairly tight and even I started to tighten the verticles.

I have hand pulled the verticles several times and it will need more to get it tight enough before it dries.

I trimmed most of the excess skin after the initial tightening.

The second dundun, Sangban now has its skin roped on.

My grandson thinks they are good.

He has a Shakere. My daughter put the net of beads on the gourd for me.

I made the outer ring a bit bigger on the sangban because I had so much difficulty getting the second ring on the kenkeni.
Surprise surprise, I had all the tapes and ropes on them before I found out they were just too big.

So I had to remove all the ropes and put them on the smaller original rings.
It takes a fair while to make the 24 loops on each of the tightening rings then thread 30m of rope through all the loops on both rings.

Ah well, by the time I get to the third one, I might know what I am doing.

It will be interested to see how much they tighten as the skins dry out, over the weekend.

Is that local gourd Scally? Nice beadwork, complement to your daughter.

I am also curious about how much the skin will shrink and the change in tone/note as the humidity goes up in summer. I played in mens groups for ages and it was fun to move in and out from the fire or play into the night and listen to the change in note,

Sebastiaan

Seb
I gave my daughter very specific instructions - Put beads on this and make it look African.

I will tell her you like it, thanks.

The gourd comes from Africa but I bought it in Byron Bay.
So far i haven't found any suitable gourds grown here.


The drums are changing every day.
The Kenkeni is very tight. Maybe I tightened it too much when it was wet?

I was able to get the skin and rings sitting nice and even on the drum and only stretched the skin to get all the wrinkles out of it before I pulled the ropes 'firm'.

On the second day I pulled the ropes pretty tight by hand. The skin was still soft/wet. It sounded very flat.

Yesterday I gave the rings several firm taps with a mallet to force the rings down more. Then re-tightened the ropes.
That made a difference.

This morning both skins feel hard and dry, although I am sure they will take a few more days to dry completely.
The Sangban is sounding better now.

I read that as well as putting drums near a fire to tighten them, you can sprinkle water on cow skin to lower the bass.

The dun duns I have seen don't seem to have the ropes pulled very tight. Generally they have a lot less ropes than the Djembes.

Time will tell.

Have you seen those Taiko drums? Huge drums and the skin is tight as......
There is a pic about with hydraulic jacks pulling the skin tight. That would be scary.
They nail the skins on so there would be no give from the ropes.
Then they flog them with baseball bats. The cow skins and the drums must be amazingly tough.

I have been waiting on timber from Studley's reject timber so I can make the third dundun. It still seems a few weeks away so I will nee to find some Tassie oak at Bunnings or one of the other timber yards.

Scally,

I know you have to be fit to do a lot of drumming but the Taiko drummers must be a different class. Also the upright angle must put a real load on the triceps. That said, the sound is worth it! It would have to be a very solid hide. The tension must be amazing, whaddya reckon, Buffalo hide?

Sebastiaan

The TAO concert is on here tonight. I wish I found out earlier.

How about whale skin - thick enough.
A mate has got hold of two French wine barrels. He said I can have one if I put skins on the other for him.
This could be fun especially if there is a bit of wine left in the barrels.

I took the duns along to drumming tonight and they used them with the djembes. I was pretty pleased. They are still getting tighter.

I recorded some of the drumming on my phone - video and audio.
Does anyone know how I can get them onto the Forum?

I made up a couple of stands for the duns.
The X Stand is for playing them horizontal. They have seperate stands for each drum in some groups.

The vertical stand is the way we use them. It is easier for one, two or three people to play this way.
The stand will hold the tops all at the same height.

The simplest and lightest method is to poke three sticks up through the ropes of each drum. I haven't made these yet.