How a Drum Shell Is Made
Drums have been used for centuries for the purpose of communicating and entertaining. The native tribal drums of Africa and the temple drums of ancient Eastern cultures were made from trees that flourished in those regions, using many different methods of construction. Drum shells of today are still primarily made from wood, although dwindling reserves of heirloom hardwoods and experimentation in drum design has led to the use of synthetic materials for making drum shells.
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Early Drum Shell Construction
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Many of the first drums were made from whole tree trunks. This required only a small degree of manufacturing, other than hollowing out the heartwood of a tree primarily with slow-burning embers. The rest of the construction process consisted of cutting the length of the hollow shell to needed sizes or shaping of the shell for symbolic or esthetic reasons. This method of making a drum shell resulted in what is referred to today as a true "solid" shell, which is still a method used by some manufacturers.
Contemporary Wood Drum Shell Designs
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The drum shell of today is constructed using several standard techniques. Layered plies of wood veneers are glued together (similar to plywood manufacturing methods) and formed into a cylinder using heat and compression.
Segmented drum shells are formed by gluing together stacks of wood strips side by side from the bottom row to the topmost edge and turning the cylinder on a lathe for shaping.
The stave method, based on barrel-making techniques, consists of single wood slats glued together at a perpendicular angle using the lathe-shaping method as well.
Single-plank construction using steam to slowly bend one piece of wood into a cylindrical shape is the closest method to the true solid type of construction.
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Types of Wood Used
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The traditional African mahogany and heirloom hardwoods formerly used in drum shell construction, such as maple and birch, have been replaced by new-growth sources of wood. Lauan, a lower-quality substitute for African mahogany, is one of the least expensive types of wood used for making drum shells. Even newer-growth maple and birch trees provide a better quality material for drum shell construction. These materials are found in more expensive drums, and factors such as shell thickness and the number of plies or slats used further distinguish the value of a drum shell.
Sound Design
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The factors that establish the tonal characteristics of a drum shell (besides the type of wood used) are the thickness of the shell and the diameter and depth of the shell. Although the basic theory of thicker shells being more resonant is true to an extent, modern techniques that use alternate gluing and laminating methods replicate or surpass the tone of solid-shell drums. The volume and pitch of a drum shell are controlled by these factors as well as by diameter and depth. Classic drum shell types, such as snare and tom-tom drums, are made in varying widths and lengths to provide different ranges of tones and pitches.
Other Control Factors
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The amount of glue used in drum shell manufacturing has a definite effect on the quality of tone. Dried glue creates a dead sound, meaning no tonal quality results from its composition. Advanced drum shell designs have found ways to use less glue by altered layering thus creating more tonal quality. The use of other construction materials, such as fiberglass and solid plastic sheets, is another method used to control both the volume and the tone of drum shells.
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References
- Photo Credit Drum Roll image by Kathy D from Fotolia.com
