I recently posted my first finished one which was a bit of a safer design as it was intended to go to a friend (who loves it, have included a pic, the last image).
This one I knew I would keep so I used it as an opportunity to try out some ideas I had floating around in my head. It was a bit ambitious and if I’m honest that ambition has lead to a few imperfections, however I’m not too worried overall because I learned a lot from all the mistakes, and as I said, this one’s only for me so the pressure for perfection wasn’t there.
Some will be wondering what it is and why I’ve gone to all the trouble to make it fancy. Basically I wanted to create something small that would allow me to try out some woodworking skills and this design gives a functional musical instrument to boot.
The success - To create the front design I used various wood stains. I was worried from some experimentation that the colours would run when they soaked into the fibres but I overcame this by sanding the ply to much finer grit than advised to prevent the stain soaking too far into the fibres. I also discovered that if I pre-stained the entire panel in one colour, the next colour I applied wouldn’t soak in as much and therefore sit on the surface. Yes, this did mean that the stains are sitting on the surface more than they’re designed too however, using a spray urethane finish made it possible to keep the design in place.
I love the oak corners. Staining has blended the colour of the pine sides and oak corners but oak just somehow sings.
The sound is great for a small drum, the bass is surprisingly good and I’ve set it up to produce three distinct sounds. Hit either top corner for a sharp high hat sound, the middle for the bass and bottom for the snare. I’ve made this one with a fixed snare, the decorative brass pins on the outside are the mounting for the snare. My first version included an adjustable snare, on this one I’ve tried to zone it so you can just choose to play or not play the snare. I recorded a quick demo but I’m not able to upload video here ☹️
Partial success, the bird inlays are carved into the wood and then filled with brass powder and thin CA glue. I like them but they’re problematic. Most annoying is although I brought the finest milled brass and polished the inlays up to 3000grit they never really polished up as well as I’d hoped and they’re also a duller, greener colour than the brass hardware I fitted the rest of the instrument with. If anyone has any thoughts on this I’d be keen to hear them.
The inlays also caused some trouble as the thin glue soaked right through the wood fibres and in places have caused the wood to resist the stains in large radius around the the inlay. I’m not sure how I could get around this, perhaps a shellac sealer inside the carving? The result is a very blotchy rear panel and little missing colour on the front design.
Outright fail - I didn’t notice that my countersink bit was loose and penetrating deeper and deeper when countersinking into the skin/tapa. As a result I almost blew through in a couple of places and the screws are set far too deep as a result. This doesn’t affect the function but I’m not keen on the look here.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read all this if you have. One more to finish, I’ll treat another friend I think, now to decide what design I’ll use, a simpler one at least I think!
