Snare Drum – Cutting Segments, Glue-up & Turning

While I let the blanks set I started measuring and marking out the segmented pieces on the Leopardwood.  This shows the layout for the center two rings.   They are a little thinner than the top and bottom rings because the top and bottom have the thickened bearing edge.

Blank Marked up for Ripping to Size

With the raw stock measured out I ripped the pieces on the table saw to correct height and thickness plus a bit.  Since the stock is square I marked the “Face” so I would not cut the blanks wrong. 

Table Saw Setup for Ripping

Here are all the blanks ready to be cut into the segments.

I set the digital caliper for the calculated distance of 2.556” clamped the stop block in place and was ready to go.  If you look close you will notice that I have a spacer under the stop block to hold it off the jig base.  This is to help reduce the possibility of a chip getting wedged between the stop and the fence wrecking my accuracy. 

Setting Segment Cutting Jig

A quick test cut confirmed the jig was set correctly.   OK, it's .0005" oversize and I'll take that.

From there the process is to make an end cut to establish the first end angle then flip the blank, set it against the stop and cut to length.  The white line on the blank will let me orient the pieces when I number the ring segments in preparation to gluing.

Cutting Segments with Jig

Here all 18 pieces for the base ring are cut and numbered along with the blanks for the center rings.  Note that every other segment has a white line on it.  I want the chatoyance of the segments to be as obvious as possible and this will help that out.

Gluing Setup

This is the setup for gluing the segments together.  It is the same as I used on the mounting ring attached to the faceplate fixture.

As before it’s seven minutes of controlled chaos to get everything done followed by three minutes cleaning up the glue then the ring is set aside to cure. 

 

1st Drum Ring Gluing

The next day I started on the second ring.  All of the rings have the same outer face length so I don’t have to reset the jig, it’s simply cutting 18 more segments and gluing them up just like before.  If you look at the two rings you will note that this one is a narrower by about ¼”.  That is because this ring does not have the thickened bearing edge.

2nd Drum Gluing

Ring Marked for Flattening

After letting the glue cure overnight the hose clamps are removed and I inspect the ring for any flaws.  Finding none I marked up both faces with a pencil.  I do this to act as a guide so as I run the ring through the thickness sander I can determine when to quit.  When all the marks are gone the face is true and flat.

A few passes through the sander cleans up the ring.  All told I probably only removed about 1/32”.  Below is a before and after close-up.

With the ring flattened I am ready to glue it to the faceplate mounting fixture.  I started with the fixture that had been turned true and flattened on the lathe. 

To act as a caul I cut a couple of pieces of ¾” MDF applied glue to the fixture, centered the ring and clamped everything together.

 

1st Drum Ring Glued & Clamped to Mounting Fixture

The next day after removing the clamps and cauls I mounted the assembly back on the lathe.  With it mounted I started rounding off the corners of both the outside and inside.  Leopardwood is very hard and even with sharp tools it is tough work.  The inside turning was the most challenging.

 

Mounted on Lathe, Ready to Start Turning

This is the end result, both outside and inside are turned so there are no flat spots.  What I have is a true centered cylinder that I will use as a guide for mounting the next layer.

Outside and Inside Faces Turned Smooth and True

To get an idea of where I need to turn down to I marked out the inner and outer faces of the drum shell.  These marks are for the half inch thickened edge, once past that the inner face will transition down to a quarter inch.  My plan is to turn the inner face to it's finished dimension as I go and leave the outer face as is until all the rings are in place.  I will then turn the outside to size working back toward the fixture.  I want to leave as much material as I can for stability.

Guide Lines for Thickened Edge

Next Up – More Discussion on the Bearing Edge & Adding Rings

Snare Drum - Test Finish, Mockups & Mounting Fixture

Airbrush Setup

To give the client a good feel as to what the Leopardwood would look like finished I cut a small piece off one of the turning blanks.  Using an airbrush I gave it three coats of gloss instrument lacquer that was left over from an electric guitar I had made.  This shot is with three coats lacquer applied but not yet buffed out.  I want the lacquer to cure for a few days before buffing.

Leopardwood with Lacquer Finish

While the test finish was curing I decided to make a prototype of the bearing edge we had come up with.  The first one made to our preliminary plan had some problems – the bump on the top is only 1/32 of an inch tall and in real life was so small that I was concerned it would not give us the desired clearance between the bump and the outside arc.  For reference the inside of the drum is to the right of the sample.  A second sample, increasing the bump size to 1/16” gave a better result.  Well, at least from my understanding of the design intent it looked like a better result.   I sent both of these photos off to the client who is the acoustical expert for his comments and thoughts.  I should add that the area to the right of the pencil line would be removed in the actual piece.

Bearing Edge Options

3rd Bearing Edge Option

His response was to suggest taking a look at an offset double 45 degree bearing edge.  Based on his description I milled another sample and sent the photo off to him.  We don’t need to make a decision yet as the edge design won’t have a bearing (no pun intended) on how I build the shell until the very end.

For the shell itself my initial thought was to make each layer out of 12 individual segments.   I have done several segmented pieces and the 12 pieces per layer seems to work out pretty well.  However, they are all smaller diameter than the drum and I got to thinking that the larger diameter might not look right with 12 pieces.  A drawing using an 18 piece ring looked better so I built a mock-up of each to check.  Seeing both samples side by side confirmed the 18 piece looked better.  I sent the photo of both pieces to the client and he agreed that the 18 piece ring would look better so that's the way I will proceed.

12 and 18 Segmented Rings

Buffing out Leopardwood Sample

By now the lacquer on the Leopardwood had cured enough that I could finish the finish.  In practice I will wait longer but as a sample it was OK.  The process starts with a wet sanding with 12,000 grit to remove dust nibs and the like.  This is followed by buffing which consists of mounting a cloth wheel on the lathe, charging it with a very fine polish then buffing out any irregularities.  That is followed

with a different wheel and carnauba wax.  Unfortunately the photo of the finished piece looks just like it did when I started.  What the photo does not convey is just how smooth the process makes the finish.

Buffed Leopardwood Sample Finish

Because of the 14” diameter of the drum shell I felt that my existing 3” diameter face plate would not be adequate to securely hold the segmented blank in place without excessive flex and vibration.  This gave me a good reason (excuse) to get a nice Oneway 8” diameter cast iron faceplate.   When the faceplate arrived I could start building the mounting fixture.  It consists of a couple layers of ¾” MDF and a sacrificial segmented ring.  The MDF layers were cut out on a bandsaw then screwed to the new faceplate.  Once mounted I turned the edges true and smooth to help balance things out. 

Mounting Fixture in Progress

I wanted a segmented mounting ring that would hold the actual drum shell out away from the MDF so I had some room for turning.  The ring needed to be stable but I did not want to use any of my good hardwood for it.  The solution was to use a piece of 2x6 I left over from the test Maloof chair.  It has been sitting in the shop for a good 10 months so it’s dry and should have stopped moving.  Unfortunately, in that time it cupped, twisted and warped.  In other words, no resemblance to flat and square.  That’s not a huge problem it just took a little work with the bandsaw, hand plane, thickness sander and tablesaw to get the flat and square blanks I needed.  Before cutting the segments I let the blanks sit for a couple of days to make sure they were done moving.

 

Blanks for Sacrificial Segmented Ring Layer

It was a good thing that I let the blanks sit as one of them developed a bit of a twist sitting.  That was OK since I had made a couple of extra blanks in case something like this happened or if I had a problem cutting the segments.  With the blanks ready to go I set the jig up to the required size and cut 18 segments.

Setup for Mounting Fixture Ring Layer

With the pieces cut it was time to glue up the ring, here is the setup.   Glue plus the pieces which are clamped together in two groups to make applying glue easy.  I have two sets of hose clamps to pull all the joints tight, a drill and a hand nut driver to tighten the hose clamps.  A hammer to “adjust” the pieces so they are in alignment once the clamps are snugged down.  Lastly several pieces of an old shirt in water to clean up the inevitable mess.

Ready to Glue Ring Together

No photos of the assembly as it’s controlled chaos to get everything done within the glue’s working time.  Seven minutes after applying the glue all the pieces are in place and the clamps are tightened.  Three minutes later the glue is cleaned up and the ring is set aside to cure. 

Sacrificial Ring Glued up

Flattening Ring with Thickness Sander

After letting the glue cure overnight I took the hose clamps off and ran the ring through the thickness sander.  No matter how careful one is those 18 joints will not line up perfectly nor will the opposite faces be exactly parallel.  A few passes through the sander takes care of both problems.  In the end I probably only removed only about 1/32”.

With the mounting ring flattened I centered it on the MDF base and installed 19 screws to hold it in place.  Out of curiosity I put completed fixture on the scales and found it weighed 17 pounds.  Last was to put it on the lathe and true up the outer edge.

Mounting Fixture Ready to go

Next Up – Cutting Segments, Glue-up & Turning

Snare Drum - The Start

Segmented Drum Example

Right at the end of completing the Segmented Bowl I received an email asking if I would be interested in building a custom snare drum.  I had a few irons in the fire that I needed to complete but once they were done we got in touch for some preliminary discussions on the project.  As it worked out I was going to be in Illinois where the person lived a couple weeks later.  We got together to work out some more specific construction details and look at various material possibilities.  I left the meeting with a decision to build the shell using segmented construction plus enough information to begin doing some drawings.  We had also came up with a short list of possible material choices.

Once back home working in SketchUp I put together a draft plan and through several discussions refined the drawings it to come up with what we both felt was a good plan. 

 

Progress Drawings

Proposed Edge Detail

One of the major discussion points was regarding the bearing edge at the top and bottom to provide the best acoustic response.  Right now this is what we are leaning toward but it is not yet final.

During this time we narrowed the wood material down to two choices Zebrawood and Leopardwood.  Because I was using segmented construction the edge of the board becomes the show face.  Most of the time this works to my advantage in that flat sawn material becomes quartersawn and looks great.  However, both Zebrawood and Leopardwood are cut at the mill so the face has the characteristic decorative grain on the wide part of the board and the edge is blah. 

 

Leopardwood Show Face

Leopardwood Edge View

Zebrawood Show Face

Zebrawood Edge View

Segmented Block Drawing

Since the blocks in the segmented 

layers are 1½” thick and 1¼” wide I had to find wood in pieces at least 1¼” thick.  This is because when I cut the segmented blocks and rotated the pieces so the good 1½” show face would be out I would have the 1¼” available to turn the drum shell round.  Finding these two woods that thick narrows the sources down tremendously.  I did find a couple of mail order places that had Zebrawood that thick but no luck with the Leopardwood. 

As it turned out my client ended up deciding on Leopardwood as his first choice.   In doing additional research I finally found one company located in Tucson, AZ that had a supply of 1½” X 1½” X 30” Leopardwood turning blanks.   This was great as pieces this size will allow me to pick the best face and cut accordingly.  So far this project has had a charmed life, I was going to be in Tucson the next week and could hand pick the pieces.  When I got to the store they had a fair sized stack and I sorted through every piece to get what I needed plus one for me to use on a future undetermined project.

Zebrawood Blanks

Back home I checked their moisture content to see if I would need to let the pieces dry, all were between 5.5% and 7.6% so that was good.  

Moisture Content Testing & Results

Before I start a new project I generally check the accuracy of the tools.  I learned the hard way what happens if the blade in the table saw or the crosscut fence is not square.  The easy way to check is to take two boards about 2” wide and 16” long then trim one end of each.

 

Test Cut for Squareness

With the ends trimmed stand the boards on the cut ends next to each other.  Take a look to see if the long edges are tight then rotate one board front to back.  In both cases there should not be a gap between the long edges.  If there is the blade is not square to the top.  If the faces of the boards are not in the same plane, that is they pitch forward or backward then the fence is not square with the blade.  In my case everything looked good and no adjustments were needed.

Checking for Squareness

Next Up – Test Finish, Mockups & Mounting Fixture