Outside the box drum shells

Cmdr. Ross

Platinum Member
As a Drumsmith, I'm looking to get into making my own stave built snares. I've never done it & I have a desire to try some woods that are not common for drums.
Being an AZ resident, I want to see how mesquite would do as that desert tree is very prevalent here.
Palo Verde is next and cedar (like what's used for fencing) would be third.

I know of a couple companies that make a cedar drum, but it's not very common.

Anyone know of some woods that would fit this desire?
 
If you can make decent drums with Palo Verde, you’ve found great use for an otherwise useless tree. About the only thing they are good for are falling on cars in storms. Hope Mesquite doesn’t work out. They at least smell good after smashing the other cars.
 
Honey locust or black locust. We have them here in Arkansas. They are thorny trees, have a decent hardness (1580 and 1700), and are rot resistant. In old times, the honey locust thorns were used as nails.


I'd also like to try fruit or nut trees. Apple, orange, plum, pecan, etc. I just took down a small persimmon tree last week. Perhaps I should cut it into staves.

I have a mimosa tree I took down in the spring. That might be worth cutting into staves also.

I want someone to build a cannabis snare. That would require a giant plant 🙂.
 
Honey locust or black locust. We have them here in Arkansas. They are thorny trees, have a decent hardness (1580 and 1700), and are rot resistant. In old times, the honey locust thorns were used as nails.


I'd also like to try fruit or nut trees. Apple, orange, plum, pecan, etc. I just took down a small persimmon tree last week. Perhaps I should cut it into staves.

I have a mimosa tree I took down in the spring. That might be worth cutting into staves also.

I want someone to build a cannabis snare. That would require a giant plant 🙂.
I tried to create a short growing season dwarf /pusilla species. Got growing time down but still would range 2-3 feet tall. I had to grow so many to get much, and they charge you per plant I dropped the experiment. I had breed out much the odor also ( because that gives away people quicker than anything). but kept potency. A friend of mine had a strain thst averaged 20-30 foot trees but he quit growing it for obvious reasons. Stood out for miles- but it was beautiful and huge- even the seeds were huge. Must have been from Texas ROFL.

Cannabis fiber would be easy to mold into strain free shells. Make a fiber ply in a round mold. I want to experiment making acrylic shells- with air bubbles and w/o to see if a porosity effect. Or build a shell with hollow air space I can fill with beads , different density materials. I’d also like to build a shell I just alter inside surface features and just the properties of bearing edge. We look at hardness and compression in thst dimension but vertical orientation elastic properties are different per wood also.
 
[QUOTE="GetAgrippa, post: 1836361, member: 13524" Or build a shell with hollow air space I can fill with beads , different density materials. I’d also like to build a shell I just alter inside surface features and just the properties of bearing edge. We look at hardness and compression in thst dimension but vertical orientation elastic properties are different per wood also.
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I have a large vented chrome over steel snare I've had for a few years now. I originally intended to try different things inside it but just never messed with it. It's a loud sensitive drum.
 
Honey locust or black locust. We have them here in Arkansas. They are thorny trees, have a decent hardness (1580 and 1700), and are rot resistant. In old times, the honey locust thorns were used as nails.


I'd also like to try fruit or nut trees. Apple, orange, plum, pecan, etc. I just took down a small persimmon tree last week. Perhaps I should cut it into staves.

I have a mimosa tree I took down in the spring. That might be worth cutting into staves also.

I want someone to build a cannabis snare. That would require a giant plant 🙂.
The land around me is predominantly Locust trees. It's an invasive species. If I didn't mow my lawn, I'd have 10 foot locust trees by summers end all over my lawn. I keep telling them to get off my lawn and they just laugh at me. I'll show them.

I thought about making a drum from locust wood. But I'll probably never do it.
 
The land around me is predominantly Locust trees. It's an invasive species. If I didn't mow my lawn, I'd have 10 foot locust trees by summers end all over my lawn. I keep telling them to get off my lawn and they just laugh at me. I'll show them.
Same here. It grows like mad on the south side of my house. I cut down like 15-20 of them of various size and ages this spring. I drilled out the stumps and filled them with epsom salt and the !@#$%^ things still continue to try and grow. I cant mow there so I weed eat that part of the yard.
 
Honey mesquite has a Janka hardness of 10,410 N so is like Bubinga which is 10,720N. Should make interesting drums.
 
Honey locust or black locust. We have them here in Arkansas. They are thorny trees, have a decent hardness (1580 and 1700), and are rot resistant. In old times, the honey locust thorns were used as nails.


Perhaps I should cut it into staves.

Cooperman drumsticks are made from persimmon, it’s pretty hard and does not warp easily.
 
I think mesquite would be cool. It's very hard, as mentioned. I have a friend who makes mesquite pistol grips, and he wears out tooling really quckly.

Still, for a one-off, I bet it would make a very interesting drum.
 
For sure? Even small staves?
I guess depending on how many staves I used it could work. It's maybe 4 inches in diameter at the base though. If the staves were 2", that's roughly 20 staves for a 13" drum as a 13" drum is approximately 40" in circumference. That's a bunch of glue.
 
I guess depending on how many staves I used it could work. It's maybe 4 inches in diameter at the base though. If the staves were 2", that's roughly 20 staves for a 13" drum as a 13" drum is approximately 40" in circumference. That's a bunch of glue.
Glue is cheap. Seems like the more staves the better, up to a point.
 
I want someone to build a cannabis snare. That would require a giant plant
Hemp would be the most likely choice. It can be compressed into brick form and used to build. There are some folks here who are building a cabin out of hempcrete.
The drum would probably be a hybrid between a fiberglass drum and that concrete one DW made.
I'm now intrigued and might have to drop a mad crop next year.
 
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