Snare Drum – Segment Cutoff & Pen

As I cut the segments from the blanks I ended up with a short piece just over a couple inches long that got tossed in the scrap pile.  Along toward the end of the project it occurred to me that it might just be long enough to make into a pen.  Something that looked like this.

Example of Wood Body Fountain Pen

A quick measurement confirmed that there was enough material for it to work out just right.  To start, I marked where the piece would be needed to be cut in half to give me the top and bottom parts of the pen. 

Pen Blank Marked for Cutting

I used a bandsaw to cut to make the cut for a couple of reasons.  First, the piece was not wide enough to take into account the saw kerf using a table saw, even with a narrow kerf blade.   Second the piece is only a couple inches long and as far as I am concerned that’s pushing it for a safe length to cut on the table saw.  A bandsaw has a narrower cut and I could easily use a clamp to keep my keep my fingers away from the blade.

Using Bandsaw to Cut Blanks to Width

With the piece cut I could move on to drilling the holes lengthwise down through each of the two pieces that will make up the pen body.  The holes need to be drilled pretty much down the center axis of the blank so for me that eliminates drilling them by hand.  You can use a guide or in my case the drill press.  I set the blank square in a clamp and drill the hole.  

If everything is set up square and if the bit does not wander off on its own you end up with the hole centered in the blank.  The photos below show the top and bottom of the blank with the hole pretty well centered.

Drill Press Setup for  Drilling & Completed Blank

I set aside the blanks for just a bit to prepare the brass tubes that will get glued inside the blanks.  To insure a good glue bond I use some steel wool and buff them to remove any oxidation.  With the tubes cleaned I mixed up some epoxy and glue them inside the blanks. 

Brass Tubes After & Before Removing Oxidized Surface Plus Tube Glued in Blank

After the epoxy has set up I use a small trimming tool to cut a smooth surface square with the tube axis.  I need this flat true surface for turning.

Trimmer and Trimmed Blank

With the ends cut true I can mount the blanks on a mandrel along with the sizing bushings, put that in the lathe and start turning the blanks to a cylinder.

Left Side Partially Turned & Right Side Unturned

More turning, some finish sanding and I am almost ready to apply the finish.  

Both Halves Turned

For the finish I decided to use the same gloss lacquer I used for the drum.  There are other ways to finish pens but in this case I wanted the finish on the pen to exactly match the drum.  Why will become clear later.  I hauled out the repaired air-brush and gave the pieces several coats of lacquer.  After letting them cure for a week I buffed them out the same way as I did the drum and was ready to put all the pieces together.

Finishing of Blanks in Progress

Here are the blanks still mounted on the mandrel with the pen parts laid out in the order they will be when the pen is assembled.  Note the right blank has a small section of the wood removed down to the brass tube.  This last bit of turning was done after the finish was applied.

Ready to Assemble

The assembly consists of mostly press fit or interference connections.  This is where the piece being installed is a teeny bit larger than the hole it’s going in.  To get the pieces to go together requires some force.  I suppose you could line up the two parts and give one a good whack with a hammer to drive it in place.  However, when putting these small pieces together I doubt the results would be as desired.  My preference is to use a hand clamp, in this case the same one that I used to hold the blank while bandsawing it in half. 

Setup for  Assembling Press Fit

With the clamp I can take my time to line everything up and gradually, in a controlled manner apply just enough pressure to push the parts together.

Completed Press Fit

Once all the parts are in place you end up with a screw-on top fountain pen.  Unknown to the client when the drum was packed up for shipping I put the pen in along with it as a little extra surprise when he unpacks the box.  Now you know the reason I wanted the finish to match.

Completed Pen

With this project all done I will take a closer look at the Shaker Oval Box from Fine Woodworking to see if it is something I want to pursue.

Snare Drum – Finishing & Another Problem

Now that I had the woodworking done I could start on the finishing.  Since I was going to use gloss instrument grade nitrocellulose lacquer for a finish I had two choices for application.  My small air brush and the larger HVLP setup.  With the HVLP gun I could probably put down a layer of lacquer on the whole drum inside and out in about 15 seconds or less.  What I was concerned about was the lack of access in spraying the inside.  I was afraid that because the finish goes on so quick I would have a high likelihood of uneven coverage and runs.  Also, cleaning the HVLP gun takes way more thinner and time than the airbrush.  In the end I thought a little extra time in application was a good trade-off for control and ease of cleanup.  However, before I could start spraying I needed to clean up the sawdust in the shop and build a rig to hold the drum for spraying.  This is what I ended up with, plenty of space to move around and a couple task lights so I could see what I was doing.

Rig for Spraying

 I started with two coats of vinyl sanding sealer formulated for the lacquer I was using.  Process is to spray the inside first off the finishing rig with the shell on edge rotating as I spray.  With the lights set just right I can easily see the wet edge of where I have applied finish.  When the inside is done I hang the drum in the finishing rig, reset the lights and apply a coat of finish to the outside. 

 

Shell with 1 Coat of Sanding Sealer

With both sealer coats applied and wet sanded to remove any dust nibs or other debris that may have gotten into the finish I was ready to start applying the gloss lacquer. 

Shell Ready for Gloss Lacquer

After 4 coats of gloss lacquer the finish has good build some depth and a good gloss.  I have one more build coat then a flash coat that is 20% lacquer and 80% thinner.  You can see the airbrush below the shell in the lower left background.

Shell with 4 Build Coats

While I was spraying the last build coat on the interior about 2” from being done I noticed some drops on the surface I had yet to spray.  Thinking they were some stray water drops I had missed from when I wet sanded I wiped them off.  Much to my surprise and chagrin they were lacquer and wiping them off had created a major problem with the finish.  The solvent in the drops had softened nearly all the previous coats I had so carefully applied and when I wiped them up off came 3 of the 6 coats of finish.  Later I found that what had happened was a gasket on the airbrush had broken which allowed a small leak that dripped those half a dozen drops across the surface.  I was so honked off I tried to fix the problem right away and of course only made it worse.  Now I had pits in the finish like craters in the moon, well it seemed that way to me.  In reality they were all confined to about an inch square and were only a few thousands of an inch deep.  That said, I was highly teed off.  At this point the best thing to do is quit for a while, so I did.  The next day when the finish had cured some I cleaned up the area with a hand scraper then used a pipette to add about 6 layers of finish to the divots bringing them a little proud of the surrounding surface.

Finish Repair in Progress

When they had cured I cut them down so they were smooth with the neighboring surface and applied a blending coat of finish.  A little more sanding to merge the repair and another blending coat fixed the problem.  All said and done the repair took the better part of a day and is invisible.  Though, at the time it happened there were some heated bad words directed at my airbrush.

Completed Finish Repair

With the repair done I continued on and gave the outside and inside the final flash coat.  The flash coat is a lacquer/thinner mix using much more thinner than normal.  The mix is about 80% thinner and 20% lacquer.  Checking the next day there were a few of the inevitable dust nibs in the surface.  Rather than try and get them out now I decided to wait and let the lacquer harden for 5 days before I did anything.

After waiting for the lacquer to cure I started the finishing the finish process by using 12,000 grit wet sand paper to very gently rub out the few dust nibs.  The next step is to mount a buffing wheel on the lathe and using a very fine polish work the surface until it is just glass smooth.  Last step is to change the wheel and use it to apply Carnauba wax. 

Buffing Wheel on Lathe

One thing that I learned some time ago when I first started doing the buffing process is that a piece of dry lacquered wood held against a rapidly rotating cloth wheel in a dry climate produces a whole LOT of static electricity.  Can you say Van de Graaff generator?  Nothing like getting blasted by a good sized static electrical charge every 10 seconds.  To keep this from happening I found the easiest way to keep the charge from building up was to ground myself.   Pretty simple in the summer, use the buffing wheels barefooted.  However, in December it’s a little too cool for that so just keeping some bare skin against an unpainted surface on the lathe does the trick.  Not high-tech but effective.

With the shell done I signed the piece and got all the hardware out ready for final assembly.

All the Drum Parts Ready For Assembly

Putting all the pieces on took maybe 45 minutes and when done here was the result.  I did not go through the tuning and head setup process but just tightened down the heads finger tight plus half a turn.  Even then it sounded pretty good to me.  Final conditioning of the heads, setup and tuning will be done by the client to suit his style and needs.

 

Completed Drum

My total time on this project was about 10 hours for design, 63 hours for woodworking and another 12 hours for finishing.  Not included are any of the teleconferencing discussions with the client.  This has been a great project; a bit different, challenging, learning something I did not know a lot about and ending up with a piece I was really happy with.  

Leopardwood Scrap

As to what’s next, there are two things.  First, I have a leftover scrap cutoff from one of the Leopardwood blanks that is just the right length to use in making the body for a fountain pen so I think I will do that.  Second, I saw an article in Fine Woodworking on Oval Shaker Boxes that looks interesting…. 

Next Up – Segment Cutoff & Pen

Snare Drum – Bearing Edge, Jigs & Mounting Hardware

While I had cleaned up the parted edge it was not really finished.  I needed to get a flat square surface before I started on the bearing edge detail.  To get that I started by clamping a couple of sheets of 120 grit sandpaper to the extension on my table saw and chalked up the parted edge.

Chalked Edge - Ready to Flatten 

Flipping the chalked the edge over I carefully sanded that surface checking frequently to see when all the chalk had been removed.  When it was gone I knew I had a flat and square surface.

Flattened Edge

To get the double 45 degree bearing edge we had decided on I used a 45 degree carbide chamfer bit in the router table.  From my experience turning the shell I knew that Leopardwood is very hard.  What I did not know was how brittle the wood was and how susceptible to chipping it could be while being routed.   With that in mind I decided to error on the side of caution using climb cutting and taking many passes on the router table to cut the bevel.  

Bearing Edge Detail and Router Setup

The router in my table is a 3½ horsepower model and to get a feel for how the leopardwood would route I started with a cut just over 1/16” deep.  Surprisingly, even with that small a cut I could hear the load it put on the router.  As the depth of the bevel increased the size and amount being cut increased I gradually reduced the cut depth to keep from loading the router too much.  The last cut was just over 1/64”.  Here the top and bottom inside bevel has been cut.  I will wait until after I get the holes for the lugs measured and drilled before I cut the outside bevel for a couple of reasons.  First, I wanted a flat surface for reference when I layout the lug holes.  Second, where the two cuts meet there will be a fairly sharp edge that I do not want to dent or otherwise damage so the later it’s cut the better.  I will probably make that cut the next to last operation.

Inside Finished Bearing Edge & Close-up

Next I needed to build a jig to hold the drum in the drill press so the mounting holes would be on axis to the drum center.  I also wanted a softer surface against the drum so as not to scratch the finish sanding job.  To that end I beveled a couple pieces of extruded Styrofoam to closely match the curve of the drum, mounted them to a piece of MDF and clamped it all to the drill press table.

 

Jig for Drilling Lug Holes

Once I got the new lugs I could measure for the hole size and layout where they will go.  With that done I set the shell in the jig, used a square to align it so the drill hit my mark and is lined up with the shells center line.  Now with everything braced in place and square I clamped a piece of 4” PVC pipe in place.  This will act as a backup so when drilling the holes the drill would not blow out the backside of the shell when it cut through.  If you look at the right image you can see the white of the PVC at the bottom of the hole.

Jig and Close-up of Hole

After getting everything set for the first hole it’s a simple matter of loosening the band clamp, rotating the shell 36 degrees, aligning everything then drilling the hole.  The setup takes way longer than the actual drilling.  Repeat the process 9 more times and Ta-Da it’s done, ready for the lugs to be attached.

Shell with Lug Holes Drilled

At this point I did a test fit with all the lugs, tension rods, heads and hoops installed.  Everything aligned, was plumb, square and fit just perfect.

Test Fit

With that done it’s on to adding the last two pieces of hardware.  The throwout which controls the snare on the bottom head and it’s anchor on the opposite side of the drum.  Since we had not decided their location as to how far up they went on the side of the drum a brief discussion with the client answered the question, 2” from the bottom.  More measuring and 4 holes later they were mounted.

Throwout and Anchor Installed

The next step was to cut the outside part of the double 45 bearing edge.  It is cut the same way as the inside, using the router with a 45 degree bit.  After a couple of passes I marked the flat area on the edge with a red marker shown on the left photo.  With that as a guide I raised the router bit a little at a time until only a trace of the line remained, right photo.  Lastly, a light sanding rounded and blended that flat surface into the two 45 degree angled cuts giving the bearing edge we wanted.

Cutting  Outside of Bearing Edge (L) in Progress, (R) Ready to Blend

Only one bit of woodworking remained and that was the arc for the snare cords.  To make this last jig I took a full size print-out of it, laminated that to a piece of cardboard and cut it to shape.  We had initially set the cut depth at 3/16” as shown here but in a later discussion the client wanted to decrease the depth of the cut from 3/16” to 1/8”.  That was no problem I just adjusted the template I had made down by 1/16” and clamped it in place. 

Snare Cut Template

Using a small drum sander in the Dremel tool I cut the rim to size then did the same on the opposite side.  Some hand sanding to clean up the surface, ease the edges and I was done.

Finished Snare Cut

That only left some final hand sanding and I was ready to apply the finish.

Sanded Shell Ready for Finish

Next Up – Finishing & Another Problem

Snare Drum – Parting Off, Layout & a Problem

Before I parted the drum from the mounting assembly I did one last check on the dimensions because I wanted to make really, really sure I had everything right since once the shell is cut off I cannot make any adjustments.  With everything checking out I started the process of parting off or cutting the drum shell away from the mounting fixture.

This shows the cut about half way through.  The pencil marks at the bottom of the cut gives me a reference mark so I can gauge how fast I am removing material.

Parting Off Operation in Progress

The closer I get to cutting the drum shell free the more paranoid I get.  What I don’t want to happen is to have the shell come lose, hit the lathe, the wall or me and damage the shell or me.  When I got to where I had less than a sixteenth of an inch left I shut the lathe off.  Because the mounting ring is made from construction lumber it is fairly soft and I could hold the parting tool in one hand and turn the shell with the other hand cutting the remainder away.   Here there is a very thin swiss-cheese looking band of material left holding the shell on, in fact when I looked inside I could see the light shining through it.

Shell Just Before Removing from Mounting Fixture

At this point a little tap on the shell caused it to release.  As you can see that there just was not much holding it on.  There is also some little bits of the base still on the shell that I will need to remove, but at this point everything looks good.  The real test came when I measured the diameter.  The result is good news, the thickened edge was within a few thousands of and inch and the overall diameter is right on.  All the measuring and checking paid off, what a relief! 

Shell Removed from Mounting Fixture

My next step was to clean up the parted edge removing the remaining bits of the mounting ring.  With that done I could do a test fit with the top and bottom drum heads and hoops held in place with 3 of the mounting lugs.  At this point it looks almost like a drum.   One thing I noticed was how light the shell felt, when I set it on the kitchen scale I was surprised in that it only weighed just under 3 pounds.

Test Fit of  Hardware

Lug Test Fit into Scrap

There are 10 lugs that hold the top and bottom hoops in place.  My first step was to do a test fit on a scrap to verify the center to center mounting distance of the holes and their size.   With that done I could lay out the hole locations on the drum shell.

To lay out where the lugs go I needed to make a template.  The starting piece was the top layer of MDF from the mounting fixture.  Since the mounting fixture was held together with screws I could easily take it apart.   The 10 lugs get evenly spaced out at 36 degrees between them.  To do the layout I drew a circle the diameter of the drum, used an Incra protractor to get the angles then measured the distance between the points where the lines intersected the circle as a check.

 

Completed Lug Spacing Jig

With the template made I could mark on the drum the lug spacing.  From there I added blue painters tape to use as a marking surface and extended the vertical center lines of the lugs onto it.

 

Center Lines of Lugs on Blue Painters Tape

Because I had only a few thousands of an inch tolerance in the spacing of the lug hole locations I used a marking gauge with a knife rather than a pencil.  The knife cuts a line far finer than any pencil.  Also, the cut in the tape will act as a guide when I use a center punch to create a dimple for the drill bit.

Marking Gauge

With the gauge set I marked the center line of each hole location.  Both the top and bottom holes were marked off the same reference edge for consistency. 

Marking Gauge Cut 

Lug Mounting Problem

As I was marking the next to last hole it dawned on me that the holes seemed to be pretty close to the bottom edge of thickened rim.  With that in mind I was afraid that the hole might come through the transition area between the thickened rim and the thinner central part of the drum shell.  If so, this would cause a problem in that the screws holding the lugs on had washers over ½” diameter and they would not lay flat if one edge was in the transition area.  A little measuring confirmed the problem.  The bad news was that I had the hardware in hand and the holes all marked.  The good news was that I had not drilled any holes in the drum shell.

I sent the client a drawing illustrating the problem and in a video conference we came up with several ideas, the best two were:

1. Get lugs with a shorter center to center attachment distance.  This will move the screws and washers more toward the center and out of conflict with the transition.
2. Get lugs with a single center mounting point.  This moves the screws and washers to the center of the shell completely out of the way.

We decided that Option 1, lugs with a shorter center to center attachment distance would be the first choice and center point lugs would be the second choice.  A day later I got a note from the client saying that after reviewing the available options he had ordered single point lugs.  With that problem out of the way and while waiting for the replacement hardware to arrive I moved on to milling the bearing edge.

Next Up – Bearing Edge, Jigs & Mounting Hardware

Snare Drum – Final Glue-up & Finish Turning

I had not glued up the 4th ring yet and when I was ready to do so I asked my wife to take some photos of the process.  Here are a series of shots that hit the major points.  Seven minutes for stacking the pieces for gluing, applying the glue, setting the pieces in the ring, clamping and “adjusting” them with a hammer for fit and finally about 3 minutes for some cleanup.

While waiting for the glue to cure I started to turn the interior to it’s finished size.  I was already within 1/16” so there was not that much material to remove but it did take some time to gradually pare down the surface and get it flat as I really did not want to overshoot the mark.  This is a progress photo showing I still had a few hills and valleys to flatten.  I will say that cutting a flat surface freehand to an exact dimension is a bit nerve-wracking.

Just a Little Flattening to do

Once I had a good flat surface the right size I did some finish sanding and was ready for the fourth and final ring to be glued on.  Here the lathe is turning very slow, about 50 RPM's.  That in combination with the the drill and sanding pad gives a good finished surface.

The next day I went through the taping, flattening, gluing and clamping process for the last time.

This last ring is thicker than the previous two since it will have a thickened edge just like the first one I glued on.  Now mounted back on the lathe I could start the final turning steps.  I am sure glad this is the last ring, the assembly is getting heavier and more awkward to put on and take off the lathe each time I add a ring.  I think dropping it now would not make me happy.

Inside and Outside Views of Final Ring Ready to Turn

As before after knocking off the outside corners and getting it just round I started working on the inside.  You would not believe the contortions I had to get into to see what I was doing to turn the step-down between thick edge and the thinner shell.

The interior diameter goal is 12 ⅞”, ± twenty thousandths of an inch with a smooth straight surface square with the rim and parallel to the central axis.  At least for me that’s not so easy when working freehand on the inside of a cylinder.  I think that’s one reason it took so long to get the inside just right.  Also, if I overshoot and cut too deep that would be a bad thing.  Anyway, here I am just a smidge from getting to where I wanted.

Here the inside turning and sanding is done.  I am now ready to start working the outside down to the final diameter.

Interior with Turning and Sanding Finished

Line Showing Outside Face Location

Before I started turning I measured and marked a line on the rim close to where I needed to cut down to.

I am going to turn down to the final diameter working from the outside end toward the headstock.  My first band is about ¼ the length.  The reason I did not go all the way at once is I want to keep as much mass on the blank as I can for stability.  I ran into some flexing and vibration on the third ring and did not want that to happen here.  When done with the first band this is what it looks like.  The outside edge is ½” thick and after the inside stepdown the body of the shell is ¼” thick. 

First Quarter of Outside at Finish Size

BIG Callipers

Measuring the diameter is easy on the exposed edge but not so easy farther down and I needed to keep a constant diameter along the entire length.  None of my calipers could measure a 14 ⅜” diameter cylinder so I spent some time making an oversized set that Rube Goldberg would have been proud of.

The next band was about a third of the drum.  Having gotten experience with the first band the second one went a little faster with the chips flying.  At least until I got to that last little bit where I snuck up on the finished diameter.  Turn some, measure, turn some more, measure and repeat.  My concern regarding flexing and vibration was well founded in that as I got close to the final diameter I began to experience some vibration that produced a ridged surface.  Not what I wanted.  Honing the cutting tool and adjusting the rotating speed of the piece eliminated the vibration and I was able to continue.

Turning Away

Hole to Allow Measuring Drum Wall Thickness

When I got to the very end of the last band where the drum is joined to the sacrificial ring I wanted to check the thickness of the rim.  To do this I drilled a small hole in the sacrificial ring right next to the drum edge.  With that I could use the dial caliper to measure the rim thickness.  When I did the measurement, good news, the thickness was within a few thousands of what I wanted.  A great relief after working blind.

After some sanding the lathe work on the drum shell is done with all of the dimensions where they need to be.

Stepping back and taking a look at the shell and the lathe I realize what a bunch of material I had removed to get to this point.  By the time I got it all cleaned up it pretty well filled a 20 gallon trash bag.  I could have made the segments a little thinner and would have had less material to remove but I decided not to cut it too close as I was not sure what problems might crop up and wanted to have some wiggle room.  

Last was to take the assembly off the lathe and do a trial fit for with the drum head and hoop.  Everything fit to a tee, can you see the big smile on my face?

Trial Fit of Hoop & Drum Head

Next Up – Parting Off, Layout & a Problem