My 13.5" Lenke beauty from Guinea

First of all I would like to thank our considerate customs officers on how much care they took with my drum coming from Australia. I love the idea of having to re varnish any and all of my drums that I get sent, so luckily for me they took all of the bubble wrap off the drum and rings that were along side it in transit. Well done and thank you once again!! (FFS)

Thankfully all this damage was just superficial and was advised by Simon Fraser of African Drumming Australia that a light sand and another coat of Danish oil would bring it back to its former glory. And it did.
As I was having to re oil, I decided that I should take a few mm off the top of the playing edge and the place where the bottom rings go, as the rings I received were not going to accomodate the steer hide and 5mm rope I had purchased.

After looking closer at the edge, I also decided to remove some un evenness from the playing edge. This is supposed to make for a more even sound and maybe less ringing. Finally after all the rasping and sanding I got it to where I wanted.

So I Decided on 34 Loops/knots for this one and so I took my required number of Knots into the Djembe Rope Calculator that I use, which is in Michi Henning's book Djembe Construction: A Comprehensive Guide. This gave me the calculations as displayed below. Which by the way is where those little dots of nail varnish come in. They are the measurement for the knots.
The green item that I used to keep little space on the knots is just a 6mm steel rod, covered in electrical tape. With extra tape at the top to stop it from falling through. The best thing about this is that I can make it whatever thickness I want with the tape. This gives me the ability to make tight knots without giving up space for the verticals rope.

More helpful on the top ring was this print out from https://www.blocklayer.com/circle-dividereng.aspx as I just needed a guide to help me get things looking even, and as a result found this website. Again, this was a tip from Michi Hennings book. I also had to make room for my wrap and rope on the area where the bottom ring sits on the drum.

So with the rings sorted, It was time to get the Steer hide on the drum. I soaked it for around 8 hours, but prior to that I used a 40 sheet hole punch to get holes in the disk for running a rope through.

​Placing the hide on the flesh rings pretty straight forward. I wanted the crown ring quite high so I tightened the tightening rope as tight as I could. I went round by hand a few times before using my pulling stick and clamping the rope as I went, for my final pull before shaving the head and completing the wrap over. I actually nicked the skin with the razor somehow, but very superficial on steer hide I think. 

​I actually didn’t intend to have a wrap over on this drum, but once the hide was on it was just the right length for a small top ring covering and so I thought I would give it a try.

After 2 or three days of drying the sides near a heater, I took off the rope to give some air movement to underneath the wrap over.

So so here it is, after a week and half of drying and a final dry pull. I am going slow on the tuning on this one. Using diamonds to tune to an accompanying drum pitch, but depending on how it tunes and gives over the next few weeks, I might try soloist. We’ll see.