BLAMINACK - HOW TO BUILD A KETE HAND DRUM - PART 11

Notice that the skin wraps around the shell, and under the flesh ring, and back under the retaining ring. Now when the retaining ring is pulled down by the tensioning rods it locks the skin on to the flesh ring. This is why it is important that the flesh ring is the same size or a slight bit larger than the retaining ring. If it were smaller the skin would slip right through…

This is the material that the tensioning rods are made from. On the left is a material called all thread. It is basically a threaded rod. I am going to cut this into pieces about 7-8” long, and weld the pieces to the ends of the rods to the right. Those rods are ¼” cold rolled steel. You can buy all of these materials from a home improvement store, such as Home Depot here in the U.S. If you have a steel distributor in your area then you can save a considerable amount of money buying from them. In my area I can buy a 20’ long section of this for $8 verses $2.87 for a 36” section from Home Depot. That is the way to go if it is available to you.

I have now welded the threaded rod to the ends of the tensioning rods… those are on the right in this picture… (Another way to do this is to cut the threads on the rods your self instead of using the all thread rod. The tool to cut them is fairly inexpensive, but it is hard work and very time consuming. If you can, welding all thread on is the way to go.) In this step I am going to weld the tensioning rods on to the retaining ring. It is extremely important to line up the rods with the coupling nuts so I am marking the retaining ring in line with the nuts so that I know where to weld the rods…This is VITAL to a nice looking drum!