Show off your axe

[bops]

Blame Dugafola. He started it by posting some pictures of his drums in this thread.

So I'll take a turn, then we can all take a turn, uploading some pictures of our favorite drums. Here are my top two.

On the left is Malian lenke carved by Yacoub in Bamako. He works with Abdoul Doumbia, and his drums are available through One Tree Drums.

On the right is a Guinean lenke. The bowl is slightly larger than the Malian drum. This style jembe is available through Wula drums, and also Djembeman drums.

Both are headed with calfskins. I've gotten good calfskin rounds from Drumskull drums. If anyone has a good source for nice solo cow or calf rounds, let me know. I prefer Ivoirian calfskin for solo jembes - my experience is that they've been good quality and thin enough to crank up and get a nice screamin sound.

2_djembes.jpg (242.98 KB) Viewed 717 times

[Dugafola]

ah kine!!!

nice bops. very nice wood. i love those Mali shells.

attached is a picture of my Mali shell. it's Gele wood and about 13" in diameter. my smallest drum. it's currently skinless now, but will get a cowskin shortly. where have you been getting your IC calfskin from? i just picked up a nice cow round from the skulls last night to lace up a bass djembe.

[bops]

Yea, that's gonna make a sweet bass jembe. If there's one thing I love, it's a sweet bass jembe headed with cowskin. ...makes the music sound so nice!

[James]

Mmmm some sweet drums there....

Here's one of my djembe's I just happen to have a photo of on my computer. It's a Lai Konate signature range Lenke, with black hair to go with my own


Where can i get thick goat skin from?

[Dugafola]

Where can i get thick goat skin from?

not sure about Euro sources...but Drumskull Drums has been a good place to get all your drum building supplies. their Senegalese skins are consistently more thick then their Mali and Guinea skins. they get those with hair on. i've had great luck with all of their skins though. hairless and hairy.

[Bingi_chile]

Where can i get thick goat skin from?

not sure about Euro sources...but Drumskull Drums has been a good place to get all your drum building supplies. their Senegalese skins are consistently more thick then their Mali and Guinea skins. they get those with hair on. i've had great luck with all of their skins though. hairless and hairy.

I hear that because mules have much stronger skin than cattle do, mule skins are a luxury choice for congueros.

Have any of you folks tried muleskins on djembe before?

[Dugafola]

bass djembe with cow skin sewn up dunun style and the latest skin on my hare put up 2 weeks ago.

[rachelnguyen]

Hey Dugafola,

Those are sweet. I love the cow skin one. Interesting how it's attached.

Love,
Rachel

PS: What is the black trim on the edge of the goatskin? It looks very neat.

[Dugafola]

basically it's 'sewn' on through a series of holes with the rope just like traditional dunun are skinned up. i had my teacher help skin it with me.

the black trim is actually a piece of rubber cut from a truck inner tube. i use it to 'tie off' the skin when it's drying after the mount so the skin will lay flat and clean. once it's all tuned and crackin, it can be used to hold sege sege in place so you don't have to cut holes in the skin.

[rachelnguyen]

I never thought of the fact that if you have a fold of skin you wouldn't have a place to put the sege sege. What a great solution! It looks very tidy, too.

Love,
Rachel

[bops]

Those look great, Duga. Nice job on the bass jembe. I'll bet it sounds sweet.

[bops]

Okay, here's my bass jembe -->

Bass jembe1.JPG (69.65 KB) Viewed 356 times

[rachelnguyen]

Wow,
no rings! Cool!

R

[e2c]

A few shots of mine... please excuse the mess on the floor!

Stem of my Wula djembe -



My Mali drum (finished/headed by http://www.botefote.com/) -



Sangban head (with a bit of my kenkeni showing, LL) made by Chuck at http://www.botefote.com -



The shells of both are melina; sangban is headed with 2 relatively light calfskins, to give it a bit of a Mali konkoni sound.

[Dugafola]

the latest addition to the collection. 13.5" outer diameter.