Drum building hints and ideas when using drum wraps.
By John Dutra | August, 2009
Drum building projects that utilize drum wraps are my favorite projects to work on.
Why? Because the project moves along fast, there’s minimal effort for a maximum effect, and you can get really creative with stripes, custom drum wrap designs, color combinations, and more.
When I was drum building for a major custom company, I was wrapping between three to five drum kits a day. So here’s some drum building tips I’ve stumbled upon that are helpful when working with drum wraps.
#1: My favorite drum building option: Design Your Own Drum Set.
Ok… this isn’t the “#1″ tip… it’s more like a suggestion! But seriously, you can send custom designs and even your favorite fabric to get laminated. This is honestly the easiest drum building project to assure that the outcome is a 100% unique drum set.
If you’re a graphic designer, than work with your advantages. If you have the vision but don’t have the means, do what custom drum building companies do: hire out.
#2: Sand Before Glueing
A drum building project without sand paper? You can’t escape it… not even with wrap! Sand the back of the drum wrap with #320 grit paper before applying your glue. I sand in all different directions… creating a scoring effect. This allows the glue to latch onto something… and helps with creating an unstoppable bond.
#3: Precise Drum Wrap Ordering
A common mistake with first time drum building ordering is NOT being precise enough when ordering your wrap pieces.
Bottom line: When ordering your drum wrap pieces…be precise!
If you have time to chat with whomever you’re ordering from, tell them about your drum building project and they’ll probably double check your math for you.
When you order, give exact widths and order the length of the drum wrap with a 1.5 ” overlap for all drums 16” in diameter and under. Any drum building projects with drums OVER 16” need a full laminate sheet (54″), plus a patch piece.
To figure out your patch piece length….find the circumference of your drum shell, add 3” to it and minus this number by 54. Always round up. For example, an 18” drum would need a 6” patch piece.
Waterloo Bridge film Bugs Bunnys 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales video
eli movie download Here’s the math: The circumference of an 18″ drum is 56.5″. Let’s round that to 57″. Add 3″ to that and we have 60″.
60″ minus 54″ = A 6″ Patch Piece.
#4: Batch Your Drum Wrapping
If you haven’t heard me use the drum building term “batching”… it simply means to group all similar drum building activities together. This helps save time and helps move the project along with consistency.
At one point when I was drum building for a big custom company, I was wrapping three to five drum kits in one day. Thats a lot of measuring, cutting, glueing, rolling, etc.
The solution? Batch all your activities! Whether or not you’re drum building for a company or doing it on a lesser scale… you’ll save a ton of time and hassle by batching your work.
For example, glue all the wraps at once. While they are drying, glue all the drum shells. Wrap all the shells, and then use the laminate roller on all the shells. Tape all the overlap seams, and then trim any wrap of the shells, etc.
Batching your drum building project makes it fly by… believe me!
#5: Use The J-Roller
An often overlooked step in drum building is the post drum wrap treatment. Most drum building gurus have huge laminate press’ to rid the drum of air bubbles and to help cement the bond of the wrap.
However, the same effect can be achieved with a hand-held J-Roller. Using a J-Roller around the drums with good pressure helps your drum building project tremendously. It helps avoid wrap warping, bubbling, sound deadening (tone is killed from air bubbles), and more.
#6: Let Them Do the Cuts
Let the drum building part suppliers that you order your wrap from cut your stripes. For a small fee, the stripes can be perfectly cut to your custom specifications….and you can avoid the “drum building headache.” Letting them do the work cuts down the necessary tools in the drum building project and also guarantees that if someone messes up, it’s not you and it WILL be replaced.
But if you’re deep into some crazy drum building ideas and you want to cut wrap yourself…the straight edge cutting jig from the DVD gets the job done. It’s made from two pieces of shelving unit, and a metal corner protector from a hardware store. I then use a razor knife/utility knife for my cuts.
If you’re interested, you can actually see the jig in the drum building tutorial Rewrapping a Snare Drum: Easily Go From Lacquer to a Custom Drum Wrap.
#7: Wrap Your Tom and Snare Drum Hoops
First Sunday hd A cool drum building trick is to wrap your wood hoops. You can do it with traditional wood hoops, wood hoops with t-rod holes, and regular triple flanged metal hoops (use a different glue like “Gorilla Glue”).
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