Turning a drum

[Wood_workur]

I've got a drum shell all glued up, and its ready to go on a lathe. I just wanna make sure that my plan is good.

The drum shell its self is made up of 24 individual staves (much like a barrel). Each is alternating Red Oak and Walnut. They are about 1.5" wide, and a tad over 1" thick.

The drum itself is about 6" deep (if it was a bowl this would be from the rim to the bottom) It is 10" in diameter.

Because the walnut staves are about .5" longer than the oak ones, to the extended ends of these I glued in a piece of 3/8" plywood onto them, and secured it to 10 of the 12 staves with 1/4" dowels. The other too were too long and I cut them off just shy of being long enough to contact the plywood. I also carefully found the center of the drum and marked it with a 1/16" hole through the plywood. This will allow me to mount it to the faceplace to turn. Is this enough to support the drum during turning?

I plan on rounding the outside, then the inside, and then parting both ends true. Does this make sense?

Any other suggestions?

The lathe I'll be using is a Delta 46-715 I believe (I know it is a 14" delta) Will it be able to handle this turning? Or should I seek use of something more Heavy duty.

[jking]

I haven't turned anything that large, so, I'll let others give their opinion on how well supported it is for turning. I'm not sure it's real clear how you're attaching, though. Are the dowels going through the drum shell into the plywood? At only 6 inches deep, you won't have much depth left after parting this section of the shell off. How will you hold the shell when you flip it to true up the other end?

Do you have a 10" drum shell you're using as a guide for finished diameter? It will need to be slightly less than 10" in order for the drum head to fit. How about hardware; have you picked that out?

Is this just going to be a tom? It seems like a pretty shallow drum for anything except a snare. I've never seen a snare that small, though. Please post pics when possible.

[Wood_workur]

Its gonna be a side snare, known as a popcorn snare. The dowels go through the plywood into the walnut staves. Those are actually about 7.5" long (my mistake for not being clear enough), what I mean to say was when I part it off I plan to make it 6" deep. So I've got about 1.5" that will be removed from either end in the turning process.

As far as the diameter, I'm aiming for 1/8" to 3/16" under sized, and I've got both a 10" drum and some 10" drum heads I can use to check progress.

As far as getting it separated from the face plate, I plan on making it round, then I'll true the free end, then I part the drum shell where I want the top to be, leaving 1/4" or so, which I'll cut by hand and then sand down to make a nice flat edge.

[jking]

Have you thought about mounting a piece of sacrificial wood to your faceplate & turning a groove in it to hold shell after it has been turned round & one end trued? That would allow you to true up the second end on the lathe. I haven't done this myself, but, I've seen it done for bowls.

How thick do you plan to make the shell? Re-rings or no?

[Wood_workur]

Have you thought about mounting a piece of sacrificial wood to your faceplate & turning a groove in it to hold shell after it has been turned round & one end trued? That would allow you to true up the second end on the lathe. I haven't done this myself, but, I've seen it done for bowls.

How thick do you plan to make the shell? Re-rings or no?

I'm thinking 1/2" to 3/4" thick. No re-rings. I'm after the sound of something a bit thicker, and there is no need for them in a stave this thick.

[guycox]

Jam chuck ( groved disk on the faceplate ) -- you may need to switch ends when you're turning the inside.. Since this will fit into a microwave oven, one thing you might consider are hot glued glue blocks. glue 8 ( 4 top and 4 botto ) of them to the inside when you're turning the outside ( drill the glue blocks and used for 3/8 - 16 threaded rod through the glueblocks and into the jam chuck. Chinch it down and turn it the inside. When you're through with the inside, take out the rods, put the whole drum shell and cook off the glueblocks.... Reverse the process with the glue blocks on the outside... -- Then use a single disk and rod to hold it to the jam chuck for sanding the outside...

[jking]

Have you turned this, yet? I'm curious to see how it turned out.