Drum Building Tips For Working With Drum Wraps

Drum building projects that use 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. Not to mention, drum wraps are very tough. Knocking your kick drum on the door handle of the club isn't as devastating with a wrap than it is when you have a nice high gloss lacquer. Chips and dents versus light scratches in a wrap? I'll take the scratches!

When I was building for a major custom company, I was wrapping between three to five drum kits a day. So here's some tips.

#1: My favorite option: Design Your Own Drum Set.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 are a graphic designer, than you have no excuse!

#2: Sand Before GluingAnd you thought you could escape the sand paper! Sand the back of the drum wrap with #320 grit paper before applying your glue. This allows the glue to latch onto something... and helps with creating an unstoppable bond.

3 Drum Building Tips to Help You Make a Drum Set Like the Pros

Drum building routines are hard to develop; it takes a lot of time, a lot of messing up, and a lot of experimenting to dial in an efficient drum building routine. Possessing the "drum building secrets" from years and years of practice would take... well... years and years of practice!

Through the years, I've developed these three drum building "philosophies" that are necessary to follow if you want a good looking and sounding drum set (who doesn't?).

Drum making has a few crucial steps that are unforgiving and irreversible. One of them is the drilling stage. After you measure and mark all your hardware lines, you'd better do a quick double check before drilling.

#3: Set Your Drumming Goals and Invest in Quality Products:

Drum making with poor products WILL yield poor results.

Think of the end goal and set your budget accordingly. Do you, for example, want a studio kit or something to bash on the road and throw around every night without drum cases?

You get what you pay for, and you should be paying for products that are specific to your goals. If making a professional sounding and looking custom drum set is your goal... invest in the best.

If you're band sounds like the Ramones and you want to trash your drum set every night like Dave Grohl did... I would recommend investing in something that is LESS expensive and lesser in quality.

After you cut your wrap to the length of your shell, you'll need to cut it down to the diameter of your shell. An easy way to do this is to use a flexible measuring tape (for sewing) to measure all the way around the shell and add an extra inch for overlap. Now lay the wrap down flat and measure out that distance and use a straight edge to mark your next cut.

Now lay your wrap down flat on the ground and mark the center of the wrap on a piece of tape.

Now you need to do a test fit with your wrap. The age old question has always been "Where should the seam go?" Most drum companies do this: Toms; under a lug, kick; on the bottom where it can't be seen, Snare; under the strainer to hide it. You will want no less than 1" of overlap for your seam. To make sure you line up your seam when gluing you'll need to get your test fit wrapped around the drum as tight as possible, with your seam lined up in your designated area, and then transfer the center mark on your wrap to the edge of the shell. Also mark each end of your wrap where the overlap is on the shell.

Drum Building 101 - How to Wrap a Drum Shell - Part 2

After you have made sure there is not sanding dust on the wrap or on the shell you can apply your contact cement. If you have already drilled your holes for hardware you may want to tape the inside up so that no contact cement can run on the inside of the shell. Use a paint brush or roller brush to apply the contact cement to the shell, the back of the wrap, and the overlap! You'll need to apply 2 coats to achieve maximum adhesion, and you can do them one right after the other. Leave no space uncovered or else you'll have some bubbles in your wrap. Make sure you really get the overlap good! Consult the directions on your contact cement to get the best results.

Most contact cement needs about 15-30 minutes of drying time BEFORE you try to put the wrap on the shell. When the glue dries on all surfaces you may proceed. - Attention! - The glue must be dry for you to have a permanent bond, it sounds counter intuitive, but trust me, if you try to stick things together with contact cement when the cement is not completely dry, it will become un-bonded over time.

This makes putting heads on and taking off heads about 10 times faster. I have built many drums before I finally found one of these and I can honestly say this may be my favorite drum building tool discovery in the past 5 years. (I know they have been available for longer than that, but I never knew I needed one so badly!)

2. Right Angle Drill - This also makes assembling drums extremely fast. However when you're screwing in any of your hardware screws (lugs, bass drum spurs, tom mounting hardware) you'll need to use a low force setting on the drill so it doesn't strip your screws. The reason I recommend a right angle drill is to be able to get inside those smaller diameter shells like 12? and smaller. With a traditional drill you won't be able to fit it inside the shell to screw the lugs screws in!

3. J-Roller - If you are going to apply a wrap to a drum, this tool will help you get any unwanted air bubbles out from in between the shell and the wrap. This really is a must for applying wrap correctly.

4. Combo Square - Ah the combo square, probably my most used drum-making tool. I use this to mark the layout for all of the hardware that goes on to each drum. I also use it to mark stripe layout for paint, and for wrap. I don't know that I could build a drum without one of these.

Everything About Drum Sets

You may have heard many soulful rhythms in several concerts. May be you have even danced on some of them. The only instrument that can best unleash the dancer within is drum sets.

Drum sets are made of mainly drums and some other percussion instruments. One drummer plays all of them. A drum set includes a snare drum, a bass drum, two rack mounted tom toms, one floor tom, hi hat cymbals, one ride cymbal and one crash cymbal.

The jazz music again has a different playing pattern. Here the ride cymbal is the main instrument. The hi hats are played by pedals and the other equipments are used to give support.

Lots of improvisation happens during playing different genres of music. Improvisations even take place in different pieces of same genres of music also.

Vintage Drum Sets

Vintage drum sets have certain characteristics that set them about from today?s drum sets. One is the quality of the tone that a vintage set produces that is described as 'warm' in sound. Vintage, brass-shelled drums are classic because of the distinct tonal range of highs and lows. Other characteristics that enhance the value and appeal of vintage drum sets are how rare they are, the historical significance of the set (who owned them) and the condition of the set.

It has only been in the last few years that drum collecting, as a hobby seems to have taken off. The most collectable pieces seem to start during the 1929s and carry through to the 60s. There are also sets that were produced before the 20s that are considered collectables as well. Although hard to find, most collectors like to find vintage drum sets that are in original condition. These sets appreciate in value more readily than reconditioned ones and are easier to sell. However, musicians who are looking for a vintage set to use for performance will often make some alterations to get the exact sound they are looking for.