New to turning: What is this set up?

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angelboy

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I'm considering making a stave/block drum and want to know what this set-up is so I can research it further.

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That got me thinking, my son is an orchestral percussionist and we've restored a couple of drums, just about to start on a 36" concert bass. Normally the body is wrapped & glued (ply, thin ash or similar) so I looked up stave drum as I've never seen one.

If you use a lathe I guess you will need one with a reversible head or an over bed clearance bigger than the finished item, so likely 15" or 17" throw to get your 14" or 16" drum. That strikes me as a big beast for an amateur set up.

Found this - all done with a router and some real imagination, including steel rod, old casters, sticky tape and suchlike but still ends up with a real quality job. Worth a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34QeuxPNTUE

You have to admire the ingenuity.

Here's another one, a more 'proper' workshop but still using router not lathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NfCplNHigI
 
I think pattern making lattes are well outside my price range.

I’ve seen a few people make them using routers on homemade jigs. For a 13” or 14” snare then routing the inside would be OK with most routers but if I decide to make a full kit then I’m struggling to get something small enough to do the inside of an 8” drum.

What’s the smallest (by height) router you can buy? I’d need something 7” or less on a guide really. Which is why I thought the lathe would be easier as the tools are smaller to get inside.

Maybe I could get a standard router set up for bigger drums and then a desktop lathe for 8” & 10” drums.

I’ll have a go with a snare first though.
 
Richard_C":30e4eup6 said:
That got me thinking, my son is an orchestral percussionist and we've restored a couple of drums, just about to start on a 36" concert bass. Normally the body is wrapped & glued (ply, thin ash or similar) so I looked up stave drum as I've never seen one.

If you use a lathe I guess you will need one with a reversible head or an over bed clearance bigger than the finished item, so likely 15" or 17" throw to get your 14" or 16" drum. That strikes me as a big beast for an amateur set up.

Found this - all done with a router and some real imagination, including steel rod, old casters, sticky tape and suchlike but still ends up with a real quality job. Worth a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34QeuxPNTUE

You have to admire the ingenuity.

Here's another one, a more 'proper' workshop but still using router not lathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NfCplNHigI

Loved the first video with the quality router tables - got me thinking...

I also like that fine eastern tradition of chainsaws and flip-flops. I once went for a walk up a mountain here, and stumbled on a Bangladeshi guy throwing a 6 foot long chainsaw at some huge pine logs. It was a warm day, to be fair, but he was wearing flip-flops, a pair of shorts, and nothing else. He was also half an hour from the nearest paved road, let alone civilization, and was completely alone. I often wonder what would have happened, if something went wrong: probably order a new Bangladeshi to finish the job.
 
Many years ago I had to make a 1/2 size umbrella from Douglas fir for a Sadolin advert. I had never worked with Doug fir before, and was quite shocked by how horrible it was!
I eventually came up with an arm on a pivot, and a bracket for a 4" angle grinder with an Arbortech blade. The process was to clamp the grinder to the arm, swing it through 360 degrees, move it down a bit, and so on. It worked fine!
Pete
 
angelboy":iniz4k07 said:
I’ll have a go with a snare first though.

Good plan. I can see that a solid snare would give a particular sound, some top orchestral ones are steam bent thick-ish ash rather than ply or laid up thinner sheets. Maybe pause planning on the other sizes until you do it. Just had a word with he-who-understands and the comment was stave drums are heavy, depends on how and where you plan to use them. (drummer crushed under pile of toms as stand fails....drummer sinks into hot tarmac carrying kit into venue).

Be nice to see how you do make it and the result though.
 
Richard_C":1toq6m4n said:
angelboy":1toq6m4n said:
I’ll have a go with a snare first though.

Good plan. I can see that a solid snare would give a particular sound, some top orchestral ones are steam bent thick-ish ash rather than ply or laid up thinner sheets. Maybe pause planning on the other sizes until you do it. Just had a word with he-who-understands and the comment was stave drums are heavy, depends on how and where you plan to use them. (drummer crushed under pile of toms as stand fails....drummer sinks into hot tarmac carrying kit into venue).

Be nice to see how you do make it and the result though.

I have a Walnut stave snare shell already that was made by a local guy. They're not that heavy compared to having a solid bell brass snare (now they are unbelievably heavy) but I get what you mean compared to a 6-10 ply drum. I can compare it directly as this particular drum is just the shell (no hardware) which slots into a snare basket. I have an acrylic and a maple shell that I can do a direct comparison with. They are thicker, which clearly adds to the weight.

It's going to take a while before I'm ready to get something going (too many things already own my 'to do' list and most of them involve jobs around the house) but I'm definitely cultivating the idea.
 
Where do you get the drums parts from ?
Looking at the videos .. I'm quite inspired to make one. I've just taken delivery of a bunch of maple boards
Tu
 
Somebody like "gear for music" (Gear4Music.com) for mainstream stuff. Look under drum accessories, head and parts categories. There are a few really high end specialists as well, but for most things mainstream is fine. Or - go on a popular auction site, buy an inexpensive beat-up drum and take it apart.

Critical to your design is the head diameter - they come in standard sizes - unless you plan to build your own steel hoops and wrap and shrink calf skin custom heads but that's not a beginner thing.

If you are new to the terminology, "Batter head" is the side you hit, resonant head is the one opposite, often the heads come in pairs of batter+resonant, the tension and even the edge can differ between them.

This might be useful:

https://www.moderndrummer.com/2014/12/need-know-bearing-edges/
 
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