I am making a drum to duplicate the appearance and performance of on of my favorite drums.  I get requests for a demo/rental Brady snare in a deeper 14″ snare.  I have a couple, but I am hesitant to send out my Brady snares as some aren’t replaceable.  So, I have a nearly completed 14×6 Jarrah drum in the works.  It is 1/2″ thick instead of 3/8″ like Brady block drums to make the drum more focused and studio-friendly.  I am using tube lugs but the ones I am using are smaller than the more bulky Brady lugs.  I am also using the Nickel strainer like the Brady snares use but my drum will sell for $500. The Brady sells for twice that.  Buy two from me and have a spare for touring.  Pictures of me finishing this drum up will be posted soon.

The lodge where we were staying had a strange restaurant on the premises.  I was stuck with no car at the lodge for quite a while and the restaurant was closed Sunday night and all of Monday.  That is quite a while to skip food.  The businesses here have strange hours with many being closed on Saturday, Sunday, Monday-one or all!  Must get my wallet and phone back.  Also, the “hospitality” folk here aren’t  very hospitable so far.  Hmmmm.  Thankfully I can get online.  I recently received an order for a 12×7 x 1/2 walnut snare.  The 12×5.5 I have in the rental/demo pile is a great drum.  This one should be special as well.  I think I’ll add one to the rental/demo pile.  So I might make up two at the same time.Š

My wife and I both feel very “at home” in the mountains.  As I sit outside breathing in the mountain air in Highlands NC, I think I could retire here in a few years and crank out turned wood bowls and art in a small shop for the tourists.  Turning staves drums and artist creations in equal amounts.  Making drums more similar to fine art objects than instruments.  Making true solid instruments for like-minded drummers who feel like driving up into the mountains.  I could live like that.Â

That is what my Ducati mechanic says.  So, i thought why not break out the Vaseline.

I’ve read that Vaseline is a good way to seal the raw wood of a drum.  This is not appropriate for a raw shell, that should have a true protective finish, but it can wok well for bearing edges.  Gretsch drums were typically finished and painted (inside) before being edged.  Many drums are made this way.  The wood at the edge is therefore completely untreated.  Many drums have the interiors completely “natural” as well.  In building ply drums, and restoring vintage kits, I have tried Vaseline on the interiors of unsealed drums, and especially on the edges.  If you own a drum with unsealed edges (it is easy to tell) try some lube.  This should not be applied to any area where a finish needs to be applied later.

 It is simply a way to seal the drum from the harmful effects of moisture.  In Florida, moisture is a serious concern.  I took my old Mirror Finish Remo kit out side of a club to pack up and the condensation made the drums fog up!  It looked like a freezer with condensation beading up and running down the side of the drum!  That is NOT good. Thankfully I caught it and dissasembled my drums rather than having water resting down inside the rim next to the bearing edge. This is why bearing edges get soft and drums go out of round.

There is a saying that a drum has to forget it used to be a tree.  This is true.  A drum will sound better months later rather than after it was just built.  I’d love to hang onto completed drums for a few weeks before shipping them , but most customers don’t like to wait. Ply drums are bent using steam and water-based glues are used in most ply drums as well.  When water is reintroduced to a drum, it wants to revert back to its original shape.  Stave and segment drums typically use epoxy glues, and the wood pieces aren’t bent into shape.  Regardless, they can expand when water is introduced.  Sealing a drum is very important for this reason.

In closing, if your bearing edges are in good shape, seal them.  Vaseline works just great and a little goes a long way.  It’s cheap and you probably have some already.  A small container would probably seal a hundred bearing edges and 20 interiors.  A little bit is all you need and wipe off any excess.

I noticed today that Ludwig has some very nice looking new drums with exotic veneers.  They look quite nice, but why have a regular old maple snare drum with a zebrawood veneer, when it won’t change the sound one bit.  It might look quite nice, but you still have a plane-jane maple ply snare drum.  For the price of one of these, you can actually have me make you a drum out of 100% zebrawood.  A zebrawood stave sounds different than a maple stave.  A zebrawood veneered drum looks nicer than a regular maple ply drum, but has no sonic advantages.  Spend your money on sound first and looks second.

The drum is to be a 13×7x1/2 Cherry stave drum.  I’ll walk through the process on here.

When I give dimensions of drums, they are listed as diameterxdepthxthickness, or number of plies in ply drums.  The just completed Walnut segment is like most every walnut snare I’ve made, just great. Walnut has a dark “bark” that mixes well with music as well as cutting through.  This drum features all of the parts I currently use in the drums I build.  I am currently trying a couple of lugs that have a more modern appearance including one from EGO called the “flat top”.  These look more like a cylinder and less like a sphere.  The samples should be here in a few weeks and I will update this blog on them.

This drum is the standard 3/8″ thick.  I might try a 1/2″ next time to reduce the ring of the drum.  It has a bit of over-ring I control with a bit of tape.  Frequently, stave drums sound just fine without any muffling.