How to make African Drums - Ashikos

If you have ever had the opportunity to hear someone playing an African drum or witnessed a full blown drum circle and wish you could make your own drum ... here is your chance,

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• (12)1x4x? pine
• wood glue
• (2) metal rings
• 50' rope
• large hose clamps

1. You will first need to decide what size drum to make. How wide to you want the drum head? How tall is the drum? For this article we will make a 2' tall drum with a 10" drum head. Start by cutting you 1x4 pine into 24" long pieces. You will need 12 pieces. Now in order to form the drum into a cone shape, which is the typical shape for an Ashiko drum, we need to do some math.
2. First take the drum head diameter (10") and multiply it by 3.14, your answer will be 31.4 (this is now the circumference of your drum head).
   Second take your circumference and divide by the number of staves (wood planks) in this case 12. 31.4 / 12 = 2.616 (this number is the width of the top of your stave. Which translates from 2.61 to 2 5/8"
   Third take the number of staves (12) and multiply by 2 = 24 stave edges
   Fourth take 360 and divide by 24 (stave edges)= 15 degrees. This is the angle which will need to be cut along both sides of the stave from top to bottom. Makes sense so far?
   Now do the calculation for the bottom of your drum. I always knock off a couple of inches from the top dimension, in this case we will make it 8" on the bottom. This forms the cone shape. You should find the sum of 2.09, which translate to approx. 2" or at least on the high side of 2".
3. Once you have got you measurements, mark you staves with a pencil. Find center of the width and mark out 2 5/8" on the top of all 12 staves. Then flip them and mark 2" on the bottom of all staves. Draw a line between the two marks from top to bottom. Now set you table saw at a 15 degree angle and very carefully cut along the line. Make the angle is got the same on both side. If you look at the end of the stave you should see a that one side is wider than the other.
4. Now here is the trick part. An extra hand could help here. You want put the staves together so they begin to form the drum. Run a bead of wood glue along the edge of both sides of the stave. Place the top of the stave onto a flat surface wide side out. Repeat this process placing a new stave next to last one just placed. Eventually you will be holding the small side of the drum in one hand while the top of the drum rest on the flat surface. Now take you large hose clamps and place them onto the cone shape, one on top and one on bottom then tighten them. Wipe away any excess wood glue with a wet rag. Let it dry over night.
5. Once the wood glue has dried the drum must be sanded smooth. Round all sharp edges basically clean up the look. Now take round piece of goat skin approx. 16" diameter and lay it over the top of the drum. Then take one ring and place on the top of the drum and slide it down about 1", wrap the skin over the ring while placing a second ring on the top of the drum and pull the skin towards the inside of the ring. A third ring will be slid up the bottom of the drum. Rope is now used to pull the rings together. This process is a bit involved so from this point I will refer you to www.nfdc.net/home/cbdb/ashiko.htm for more detail into tightening your new drum. The above website is an excellent source for information on how to make an Ashiko Drum and it comes complete with pictures. So enjoy your new drum and thump away!

Tips & Warnings

• Make a jig for your staves so you can make them all identical.
• Be careful using power tools and wear on the proper safety gear or find someone that works with power tools to help