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HOW TO RESKIN SABAR
Hi all,
Some time ago I've asked information about the Sabar. it was for a friend of
mine, he re-skinned his Sabar in the meanwhile and here are his experiences;
> Hi everybody, especially the DIY drum builders,
>
>
> a couple of weeks ago I was able to buy a very beautiful sabar. Only
disadvantage: the skin was torn, and I never reskinned a sabar.
> Because I do have experience in re-skinning djembe's, I took my chances
and bought the drum.
> After some inquiries on the internet, I found out that there was no
information available about re-skinning a sabar, the only 'technical'
information I found was about tuning (with which I had no problems) and
playing techniques (both nice webpage's from
> bongocentral).
>
> So I decided to just start and see.
> First of all, I removed the old skin. Fortunately it was still on the
drum, and I was able to make some accurate drawings/photographs of all
details.
> When I had the bare drum kettle, I used the opportunity to sand the wood
(until shining as a mirror). After the sanding, I used (dark bees-)wax to
bring out the very nice grain of the wood. And now the big moment was there.
I had to put on the new skin.
>
> First the pegs:
> I noticed that some original pegs in sabar's do not have a nice smooth
shape. They are the size of the hole for about half their length, and then
suddenly they are a lot bigger. If you want to tap the peg into the hole, it
will always stop at the part
> where it gets bigger. I like more smooth pegs that can be driven into the
holes more secure.
>
> ASCII art (use courier font or similar)
>
> _ _
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | / \
> _| |_ stops here | |
> | | | |
> | | | |
> | | / \
> | | | |
> |_____| |_____|
>
> wrong peg 'right' peg, (actually, this is a bad drawing: it
should be going smooth from top to bottom)
>
>
> The skin (goat, rawhide) was soaking in water for a couple of hours.
(Normally, I soak goat skins for djembe's at least over night, but usually
even over two nights.)
> I first put it on the sabar, and used a large rubber strap to keep it into
place.
> After nicely stretching the skin to be mounted evenly over the drum, I cut
7 slits at the locations of the holes in the drum. Now comes the tricky
part. If you have ever looked at a sabar, you can see that the skin is tight
over the drum at all places,
> even 15 cm down from the rim. You cannot stretch a skin that far. If you
look even closer at the skin where the holes are, you can see that the skin
is folded:
>
> ASCII art (use courier font or similar)
>
>
> The whole wide
> world start
> peg
> x
> x
> _______x__________________
> outside of fold|_______x______
> skin___________________x______|inside of fold
> x
> _____________________ x _________
> | x |
> drum wood | x |
> | x |
> _____________________| x |_________
> hole
> x
> inside of drum x
> x
> peg
> end
>
> So, now you have to determine the size of the fold. Notice the peg goes
through the skin three times, i.e. you need three holes. The distance
between your holes, determines if the fold is to loose (distance to short),
nicely fitting (distance correct), or
> even ruptures the skin (distance to far). It depends on the distance
between the holes in your wood and the distance between the original holes
in the skin (remember, I already put 1 hole in the skin for every hole in
the wood).
>
>
> ASCII art (use courier font or similar)
>
>
> Holes O in wood (7x) O<------distance = Xcm------>O
>
>
> First holes O in skin (7x) O<--------distance = Ycm---------->O
>
>
> Now make extra holes on the side of each original hole with the distance Z
= (Y - X) / 2
>
> Skin + extra holes *
>
* O *<---Dist = Y - (2 * Z)----->* O *
-----> <-------
Z
> As you can see, now the distance between the extra holes is exactly the
same as the distance between the holes in the wood:
> Dist = Y - (2 * Z)
> = Y - (2 * {(Y - X) / 2})
> = Y - ( {(Y - X) })
> = Y - Y --X
> = X
>
> So the skin will fit neatly around your drum, after folding it. So, when
you put in the pegs, you put the peg from outside to inside through the
first (extra) hole, then from inside to outside through the second
(original) hole, and last from outside to
> inside through the third (extra) hole. Make sure the folds are neat and
let dry for one day.
>
> After a day, I removed the rubber band, loosened the pegs and removed the
dried skin from the drum. Now it was time to make the nice twisted rope, and
the straps to tune the drum. At least, this is the sequence in which I did
it, because I did not have
> any clue what to do first. Because the skin was (almost completely) dried
in the shape that it would be in finally, it was easy to mark the slits for
the rope and straps. I just cut a small slit every 1.5 cm.
>
> ____________________
> ___------ ------___
> / \
> | playing surface |
> |\___ ___/|
> || ------____________________------ ||
> | || | | || |
> | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
> | slits |
> | | /|
> || / / /fold / |
> | / / / / O|
> |O / / holes / | |
> \___ / O / O / O |__/
> ------___/___________/____------
>
>
> Next time I will use a smaller distance (10mm), because I noticed
(afterwards) that I did not have many slits for the straps.
> Through these slits I have woven the rope: in through the first slit, out
through the second, in through the third etc until one time around the drum.
> Now, you do a second round with the same rope but going out through the
first slit, in through the second, out through the third (exactly opposite
to the first round).
> Furthermore, when going from inside to outside, you ALWAYS go above the
rope that is already there (from the first round), and when going from
outside to inside, you ALWAYS go below the rope that is already there.
In
this way you get the nice twist.
> For the straps for tuning the drum, you cut 7 pieces of 'ribbon' for about
1.5m. You fold one in half and do the same twisting-weaving trick as above.
Only difference: you do not go around the drum. You start with one end of
the strap and weave it from a slit slightly 'after' one of the wholes and weave it to the slit slightly
before the next hole:
> start end
> * *
> slits | | | | | | | |
>
> holes O O
>
> In through the first slit, out through the second slit etc.
> This weaving is ABOVE the rope you already have woven through the slits.
Now the other end of the strap goes in the same direction. But you do not
start with the first slit, you start by putting it underneath the rope, and
then in through the second slit, out through the third etc. Use the same technique as for the rope to get
the twist. Put all the strap-weavings above the rope!. One of the strap ends
will go out through the last slit. This is OK. The other will go in through
this last slit. This is also
> OK. Take this last strap at the inside and put it out through the slit
from underneath the rope. Now, both ends of the strap are on the outside:
one above the rope, and the other underneath the rope.
>
> Repeat this process for the other 6 straps.
> Now, you are almost finished. Put the drumhead you've just created on the
drum. First, tighten the rope as much as possible and fixate (use a knot).
> Next, tighten each of the straps to its peg, (using the technique as
described at bongocentral). Do not tighten too much at first. Adjust the
tuning of your drum until the sound is alright. Personally I like to do this
very gradually to allow the skin to settle to the new tension. It will loosen the first couple of days/weeks
of playing anyway, and you will need to re-tune it quite often in the
beginning.
>
> Hopefully, this information is helpful to anybody out there, even without
nice photographs to show you what I've done.
>
> Keep beating the rhythms,
>
> TamTam Ton
