The Incredible (insane?) Drum Experiment

 

 

Having been to Estrella War (finally) this year, Mistress Tatjana and I became enamored with House Rolling Thunder's wagon full of war drums. Watching this household beat on these monsters and seeing how it affected the Outlands Army as well as Calontir, we came to the conclusion that we MUST create a similar avenue for ourselves to incite our Calon Army. (We never think small!). To begin our quest for a tribal call for Calontir, we enrolled in drum lessons from a local drum instructor (yes, we're learning to read music and everything). Although, after pricing drums, we've had to rethink our plan of attack a bit. Drums aren't just expensive...they're EXPENSIVE. So, with a lot of help from Tatjana's husband, Faolan, we are making our own "war drums".

The creation of the drums is being documented here for the amusement of those who wish to play the at-home-version of the game. We'll keep updating this page as progress (and pictures) are made. And if this inspires you, let us know! Drumming is a communal thing and we like to hear from other drummers.

The first drum was started from an ordinary whiskey barrel cut in half.

The slats were pried apart wide enough to get glue between them and then were clamped back together to dry. (The original metal bands were removed and put back on as needed to aid in the application of glue).

Then Faolan planed the edge to give it a clean bottom and lip.

After the glue had set up and the metal bands could be removed, Faolan sanded the outside of the barrel to remove the roughness and the charred bits that are inherent with whiskey barrels.

Notice his use of lung, eye, and ear protection...very important!!!
He also sanded the inside of the drum shell to insure a smooth surface for the sound to bounce off.

Once the shell had been polyurethaned within an inch of its life, it was time to cut the rawhide for the drum head. We purchased a large steer hide in hopes of getting both the war drum heads out of it. This was not the case. We now have lots of hide for smaller drums and enough for one war drum. More hide was purchased...

Using instructions from other sites, it was determined that we needed a circle that was 42 inches in diameter. Here is the soaked hide that is now getting its slits for the tension bars. A chisel and rubber mallet worked nicely for the slits.

Here Faolan works on stringing the tension ropes through the eye bolts and around the tension bars.

We used sticks (bachi) to twist the ropes to create the stretch on the wet drumhead. This was the first stretch.

Here is the second stretch (after taking the drumhead off and resoaking it). Faolan demonstrates just how tightly this is stretched. We're hoping this is tight enough. Our ropes aren't long enough to twist any more, the bachi are starting to crush, and the eye bolts are starting to distort.

We're learning a lot about drum making!

Last update: May 27, 2003