munsillian

Made a little progress, not much, on making a drum out of a section of palm trunk. I hollowed it out to about 3″ wall thickness, but it was a pain ’cause there was still so much water in it that chisels just bounced off and tore out sections rather than cutting.  So I let it dry outside in our 100 degree F heat for a month and now it is more workable. It is considerably lighter and marginally more workable.  It now even has a bit of a tone when you tap the side, whereas it did not, before. Might be able to make a drum out of it after all.

I guess this thing is going to resemble some kind of bastardized Dundun.

To do:

Get the wall thickness down to about 0.75″. It currently ranges from about 1-2″.  Then I’m going to use Gorilla Glue to stabilize the interior wall and start sanding down to about 0.5″. The Gorilla Glue will bind the fibers and also interact with any remaining moisture (if any). It dries hard and may improve the acoustics.

Sand and finish the exterior and ends.

Figure out how I’m going to skin the head(s) and if I’m going to use oxhide, goatskin and whether or not I’m going to skin both ends of the drum.