Building a Drum kit

So what happens when a retired guitarbuilder buyes himself a Chineese made drumkit and installs it in his living room? He plays it for a while. He is happy because its his first drumkit. Before, he has only be playing a little bit on other peoples drumkits in different rehearsal rooms and its decades ago.

He starts being serious, practicing a lot, taking online lessons with jazz legend Peter Erskine and finally he thinks: "for the past 17 years I have only played guitars and violins that I have made myself.... This is weird". So his jazzy girlfriend tells him that he has to build himself a drum kit. AND HERE WE GO.

  The finished kit is in standard jazz or bop size 18x14" Bass drum, 14x5,5" Snare, 12x8 tom and 14x14 floor tom.

 

 Here's the raw shells from Keller USA that I bought in Germany from ST Drums. Its North american Hard rock maple in 8 ply (5,5mm) for the snare and the bass drum and 6 ply (4mm) for the toms. Its thin, I know, but since I'm going to use reinforcement rings, it should, according to those knowing a lot more than me, be enough. Besides, I prefer thin and vibrant shells and accept that projection could be slightly less. Thin and vibrant drums are more fun. The shells are top quality and is what has been used by many top custum drum builders and also by DW drums before the started making their own shells.

Top photo: The reinforcement rings for the bass drum, I cut from the bass drum shell, so they will be 5,5mm thick

Middle photo: The reinforcement rings for the snare and the toms are cut from the floor tom shell and are 4mm thick.

Bottom photo: a simple setup for cuting the reinforcement rings

 

Gluing the reinforcement rings. An old woodworkers saying: "You can never have to many clamps".

 

 Here you can see the snare drum with reinforcement rings. It is being squared on a large sanding board. The sanding board, I believe is one of the most important tools in making a good sounding (and tuning) kit. A flat base for the bearing angle is absolutely essential.

All that hardware! All the meassurement and all the little holes. I chosed to drill 2mm holes for the hardware and finish the drilling after the shells have been lacquered.

Finishing the bass drum and the 2 tams. I'm not so fond of drums wrapped in plastic or stained veneer with varnish. I like monochrome color. So I mixed a classical light blue, close to turquoise color in 2K polyurethane.

While the shells were hardening, I made a bass drum riser using a cheap piece of Taiwan hardware, a tube and a stainless steel plate. The tube and the plate was welded together. I dont like the bass drum risers that are attached to the hoop and since my Pearl Midtown kit has a similar system, I find it to be a better way of doing things. Thick pieces of leather is now glued on the plate, so tat the pedal will get a firm grip.

Bass drum finished. Bottom shows cutout in the hoop so that the pedal can come closer to the drumhead.

12 x 8 tom finished

 

Floortom finished.

The finished snaredrum. It has been french polished and instead of polishing it up to gloss, I have finished it with 0000 steelwool, which gives the softest satin look and feel. The snare and the toms have diecast hoops for the batter head and 2,3mm triple flange hoops for the resonant heads.

Detail of bearing edge, On the snare and the toms I have routed a double 45 degree angle with the peak sitting 2,5 from the outer edge. The peak has been flattened slithtly on the sanding board and rounded, polished with 1500 grit mesh and a finish of wax.

The bass drum also has a double 45 angle, but with a much wider peak and rounded some more. Polished and waxed.

 

So here's the finished drumkit with cymbals and a pinup. The Pinup is real and alive even though she looks like a stuffed animal on the photo. 😎

Thanks for watching, and a big thank you to the custom builders leaving their blogs and websites open even after they have stopped building drums. Thereś a lot of info out there. Also thanks to big companies like Tama and DW for having detailed webpages with a lot of info on their drums.