Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 22, 2011 at 5:38am

Hi Colin,

This has gotten to be a pretty interesting discussion, but too bad it is outside of the CBN's banjo discussion group. Not to worry, though. I put a blurb and a link in that group so they can easily find this thread. The banjo group is called "Banjo Players Unite!". The group is evolving into a banjo builders group.

-Rand.

 

P.S.  Sorry for thinking you were from the U.K., Colin. So, you are in luck when it comes to free Tyvek courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.

 

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Permalink Reply by colin mcgrath on July 22, 2011 at 5:42am

I think I might do a test run to make sure I can get the tension right. I will try the upl. tacks and prob fold the material up for extra layers where the tacks enter. But first I have to find a place that still sells those weaving rings, it would be prefered for my application due to the thinness of the wood. The box I am going to use will be a large artist box and a used 6 string neck that I might just do a 5 string build. The next question after the skin is: Can I attach a piezo to the resonator directly, or should it be attached to the box?

Rand Moore said:

Hi Colin,

You might try stretching it (your Tyvek head material) the best you can while tacking opposite ends (as you work your way around the drum) with strong tacks, the kind they use to tack upholstery onto furniture. (Maybe they call them "upholstery tacks"?) Getting the even stretch all across the drum will be the hard part. Rpeek was using banjo hardware that makes tensioning the head a lot easier. I seem to recall he used two layers of Tyvek. He mentioned it in one of his other videos about building a postage envelop banjo.

I have a Chinese made Qinqin ("chinchin") that looks like a banjo, a circular body made of wood and a small drum head (made of cast iron with sheep skin spread across it). The drum just sits in a well and it has no tensioning mechanism. The instrument sounds pretty nice, more mellow than a banjo, due to the wood. You may have similar results adding a drum to a wooded cigar box. The problem with my Qinqin is that the fretting used some odd-ball spacing that looked diatonic, but wasn't. So I pulled off the original frets and plan to re-fret it some day. In the meantime I got involved in CBG building. Well, some day I might get back to fixing my Qinqin.

Oh that reminds me. In the old days banjo players didn't have all this fancy tensioning hardware, so what they did when the humidity changed and the head began to sag was to remove the current bridge and put in a slightly taller one. That might do it. The combination of a taller bridge with string tension might be the mechanism you can use to add the final tension you need to the drum head. Fortunately, Tyvek doesn't stretch with changes in humidity (at least I haven't heard that it does). 

Actually it all boils down to string tension. The bridge should be tall enough to give your head the extra tension it needs without raising the strings so far off the head that you loose good action (i.e. the strings aren't so far off the fretboard that you can easily fret them).

 

Hope this helps.

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by colin mcgrath on July 22, 2011 at 5:48am

BTW if you get that Qinqin done I would like to hear it. I love the sound of that instrument. I want to build a Guqin style CBG some day, with 2 boxes on opposite ends acting as resonators. And double piezos for extra punch.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 22, 2011 at 6:37am

I was thinking if you have your drum hoop, and can find a narrow strip of veneer (wood), then you could use a very thin drill bit to pre-drill the holes through the drum hoop and the veneer "ring". This would make it easier to hammer in the tacks. I was also thinking that if you went around in either a clock-wise or counter-clockwise direction, tacking opposite ends that eventually you would end up with a bunch of excess material that you can't tack down. I think a better strategy would be to tack it in a way similar to tightening down the lugs when changing a tire on your car.

 

That is, do one tack and then do the opposite side. Then choose the next position to be 90 degrees to the line you just tacked down and tack this line down, then do the line at 45 degrees, and then the opposite line at 45 degrees, and then do the four 22.5 degree lines. That's 8 tacks. Maybe 16 would do a better job. On modern banjos they usually have between 18 and 24 "hold downs" or whatever they call them do-ma-jiggies. Here's a diagram for the tacking pattern I'm suggesting...

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Permalink Reply by colin mcgrath on July 22, 2011 at 6:50am

That was kind of my line of thinking as well. With my limited thoughts on the process I was wondering if 2 tacks in close prox. for the first 4 would help any? Maybe with holding during tightening. My thought for using a kniting hoop is that they have the nuts on one end that could provide some tension help when the skin/tyvek is finished. Something I just thought of though, I do not think that wood is strong enough to hold up. Maybe using a drum hoop and cut then add a nut and bolt type contraption to help with tension would be easier? which raises the follow up question to that, what kind of tension  should I aim for on the head? I know it has to be tight enough to not sag under string tension so is there a goal tightness? I guess I am skeptical that my elbow strength is enough.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 22, 2011 at 8:47am

Using a few temporary tacks to keep the "skin" pretty much in place is a good idea. Then, as you tack them in for real, you can undo the temporary tacks.

The knitting loop sounds a little weak to me. Maybe if you could fashion two of them together, perhaps gluing one to the inside of the other (may require cutting open the inner hoop and shortening it a bit so that it can fit inside the outer hoop).

As a goal, tighten it as tight as you can by hand. When you add strings and the bridge, tuning the string will tighten the drum further. The drum will sound best at optimal tension, so do the old tap test. If it sounds dull, increase tension and tap again. If you get it right the tapping should sound pretty bright. I don't really know what happens when it's overly tight. Maybe the skin pullls free from the tacks.

We should invite some drum builders to the group.

 

-Rand.

 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 22, 2011 at 1:27pm

All,

I've built several, leather skinned, "Indian" drums from scratch a few years ago with the Cub Scouts. There is a relatively easy way to tension up a drum head for what you're trying to do: Take your drum head material (leather, Tyvek, whatever), and punch holes evenly around the circumference, about 1 inch in from the edge. Take some twine, string, or actual leather thong (you can cut a continuous piece from a single piece of leather by cutting a thin strip in a spiral), put some tacks or small finishing nails into your embroidery hoop (they sell these at Michael's hobby shops, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn Fabrics, local quilt shops (my wife's a serious quilted, is why I know this ;-) , and yes, they will hold the tension of a hand drum without breaking - the Cubs and I built a couple of bodhrans this way while we were at it), then lace your string, twine or thong through the holes you just made in the skin, pulling down and looping the lace around each of your nails / tacks, tighteniing as you go. If you want it tighter, insert twig into the lacing, and twist. You may have to do 3 to 5 of thes around the circumference of the drum. You could then tack it down with upholstery tacks, and unlace. or you could just use the lacing. Retension with your twig(s) as needed.

If you are doing a skinhead, then soak it in water for 24 hours, lace it up and tighten it, then let it dry in the sun for 24 to 48 hours. This works well for drums with leather laces; soak the laces the same way as the drumhead, and lace while wet.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 22, 2011 at 1:42pm

Here's an even better way than tacking:

http://www.ehow.com/how_8432442_make-indian-war-drum.html

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 22, 2011 at 2:02pm

Hi Oilyfool.

 

Thanks for the information.

 

I should try the embroidery hoop with the Tyvek postage envelopes.

Your idea of using lacing straps and sticks to form several tourniquets

is just the right answer for tensioning the head.

 

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 22, 2011 at 2:28pm

Rand,
My pleasure! Can't wait to see the result.

And one of these days, I'll remember to add pictures when I write one of my longwinded replies;-)

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 23, 2011 at 4:04am

Ohhh-kaaayyyy,

Iffen the embroidery hoop idea leaves you cold, then get a cheap 6" kid's tambourine on eBay, and remove the jinglers. The laminated hoops on those are the same thickness, both laterally and vertically, as some of my wife's embroidery hoops, and they already have a drumhead installed. I know, I know, it ain't homemade from found objects...

Just sayin'...

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Permalink Reply by colin mcgrath on July 23, 2011 at 6:25pm

all good ideas. I will have to see which one I end up using.

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