Tag Archive - maple shell

Custom Drum Builder Profile: Kevin Bowen

May 14, 2012 in Drums, Inspiration, Reader's Drum Pictures with 0 Comments

Where do you live? Lakeland, Fl

What are the sizes of the drums you built? 7×10 7×12 12×14 14×16 18×20 (depth x diameter)

What type of shells did you use? Keller maple shells, 10, 12, 14 are 6 ply and 16, 20 are 8 ply

What type of drum hardware did you use? Hoops are maple, lugs are a basic Yamaha style teardrop, but I powder coated them with an “antique silver vein” finish.

What type of finish/wrap did you put on your drums? “Sapphire Blue” water based dye, several coats of poly using steel wool between coats to get the satin finish.

What was your favorite part of building your drums? Watching the “finish” evolve between coats, sanding, poly applications.

What was the hardest part of building your drums? For me it was the “sanding.” I have trouble with my wrists (tendinitis). Second, would be applying the polyurethane. It was my first time and I had a few runs I had to repair on the first couple of coats.

How long did it take you to build your drums? Well… About 9 months. However, I had to put the project on hold several times. Probably about 80 hours total. The powder coating added a good amount of time.

How much money did it cost you to build your drums? For actual drum parts, I suspect around $1400. I had additional costs with tools, router table, powder coating equipment, etc.

How did you learn about building custom drums? I bought the “How to Make Custom Drum” book.

What is 1 tip you could share with someone who wants to build their own custom drums? Don’t rush process and don’t settle for “good enough.” If something doesn’t turn out the way you like it. Fix it or redo it. I made that mistake and had to refinish two drums after I had already applied the polyurethane. I thought it was “good enough” then once the drum finish was complete… “good enough” didn’t cut it. I should have made that call after applying the dye.

What does “100% Maple” Drum Shell really mean?

May 21, 2010 in Drum Building Resources, Drums, General Updates with 1 Comment

The other day I was carousing the Wal-Mart of music stores (Guitar Center) for some inspiration and ideas for a new kit I’m about to start building and happened upon a drum set that advertised 100% maple shells. The thing that struck me funny is that the drum set was only $599 for a complete drum set with mounting hardware (kick drum, 3 toms, and a snare drum). I just couldn’t believe my eyes, this set looked great, and for that price I was beginning to wonder how in the world I would be able to compete with a great looking drum with “100% maple drum shells” that could be purchased for less than half of what it takes me to actually build a similar drum set…

After I sat down and played on them I examined the shell, the hardware and the actual construction of the drum itself.  There were a couple of very noticeable differences in the drums that I make and in the drums that were in front of me.

I might talk about some of the other differences in other posts, the first thing I noticed after turning over the snare drum and looking at the bearing edge was that there was no interior finishing done to the drum or bearing edge, and honestly the inside of the shell looked like any other cheap beginner drum set shell. It definitely didn’t look like the Keller maple shells that I use and recommend for building custom drums. I know that there must have been some corners cut to make this drum set so cheap so I asked one of the sales associates how these 100% maple shell kits could sell for $599. He explained that most of the cheaper “all maple kits” only have 2-3 actual full sheet plies of maple, and they usually have a couple layers of ground up maple plies that are just kind of filler in the middle of the drum. That way they can still get away with calling it “all” or “100%” maple shells, but in reality the shell will not play, feel or resonate like a true “all maple ply shell”.  Interesting. Continue Reading....