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DIY thunder drum information
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Josephine
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
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No. 1 Posted on Nov 15, 2012 8:15 AM
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I have a small club and we desire to build some thunder drums. Although we have bought some small ones in the past, we are looking to construct ones of 8" diameter or more. While there are plenty of places to purchase such drums on the web, there seems to be very little information on accurate do-it-yourself techniques. For practice, I have tried making the smaller 3" drums using a Pringles can with various membranes and springs, but I cannot obtain the resonance of the commercial units. From my experiments, I think the key may lie in the spring resonance. The limited information I've come across suggests springs have to be stretched a certain amount and also need to be a certain size. I can always calculate spring resonance, but I need to know what frequency and also whether such resonance is before or after stretching.
Any help would be appreciated. I've come across several web sources on construction, but I have found that none of these produce a good working unit.
Thank you,
Josephine
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Josephine
Posts: 2
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
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No. 2 Posted on Nov 17, 2012 6:51 AM
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Ok, going to reply to my own post since no one responded at all. We did our own experimentation with various drum sizes and found that the spring characteristics are the #1 factor in a successful result. This is secondly followed by the type of membrane, but this isn't as important as the spring.
The bottom line is that it seems that for anything up to roughly a 6" diameter thunder drum, it's actually cheaper to just buy it. However, for larger sizes like 10"+, it appears cheaper to DIY providing you have a suitable spring source and containment cylinder.
For example, I made a quite low frequency and very thunderous drum yesterday from two, full size (3 lbs) stacked cardboard made coffee cans and a custom reworked spring. The membrane used was simply the coffee can's plastic lid as this, along with the reworked spring, provided the best resonance out of several plastic materials on hand. A Remo Fiberskyn drumhead is arriving later this week to try making a 12" diameter drum. I predict success if the proper spring is used.
The key is in the resonance of the spring. Most standard hardware store springs aren't going to do, unfortunately. And it will have to be restretched/ reworked. However, your mileage may vary.....
Just thought I'd share since I was unable to find anything reliable about this on the web. I suspect most people just buy them.
Best,
Josephine
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