And my next snare.. (steam bent cherry)

[crazyhorse]

She's just a shell but my what a beautiful shell she is. In my attempt to bring a few "unknown" names to the site let me introduce you to a beautiful Cherry steam bent shell courtesy of Ian at Witt Percussion. I'd heard good things but after seeing his work in person, I'm VERY impressed. Size is 13x5.5

My apologies for the iffy pictures... it's dark and my lighting is somewhat limited at the moment. I can't afford the nice flash for my digital rebel because I'm too busy buying drum stuff.

The outside:
http://www.mckenziedrums.com/CherrySteamBent/outside.jpg

The inside:
http://www.mckenziedrums.com/CherrySteamBent/inside.jpg

VERY nicely cut edges
[http://www.mckenziedrums.com/CherrySteamBent/edge.jpg

I'm going to keep the finish pretty natural but probably add a cherry stain just to darken up the beautiful color of the wood a bit. The pictures don't do it justice that's for sure. I'll try to get pictures of it in the sun next to one of my maple shells for reference.

[Ironcobra]

great looking drum, slap some very clean, classy hardware on there and lets see some more pictures, and some sound clips if possible

looks very slick

[crazyhorse]

I'm definitely keeping this one traditional. So sorry.... no sparkles. (The set I'm building for a friend of mine is going to be neon green sparkle paint... so basically I had to do this drum so that I could forgive myself for what I'm about to do!)

[crazyhorse]

http://www.mckenziedrums.com/CherrySteamBent/CherryCleared-01.jpg

and

http://www.mckenziedrums.com/CherrySteamBent/CherryCleared-03.jpg

I've been slow sorry... Just got around to doing the finish on this yesterday and today. Finally got the hang of my new paint gun so the clear went on pretty smooth. I did a few more passes after the pictures were taken. I was hoping to have the finished pictures up by Wednesday but my hardware is being delayed a bit.

[jollymosher]

How do you make so many snares all the time?

How many have you made?


I looking for a really really small custom builder who can quote me a good price on a five or 6 piece.



Edit: cool snare by the way! i dig the cherry wood sort of thing. I only use 13" snares so this is right up my alley

[drew.]

very nice and clean, i like

[crazyhorse]

Just a hobby of sorts for me... My business will be wholesaling metal shells mostly so I just finish a drum from time to time for fun. It's relaxing stuff and there's nothing quite like tuning up that drum you finished for the first time. I HIGHLY recommend people try building one just to check it out.

[Drummer Karl]

hey, the pics are actually cool!
And the drum looks awesome till now. I`m really excited how it will sound and look!

Beautiful work.

Karl

[Deathmetalconga]

Very cool. Steam bent is even more rare than stave. Before plywood technology, Western drums were usually steam-bent.

[fijjibo]

Very cool. Steam bent is even more rare than stave. Before plywood technology, Western drums were usually steam-bent.

Really?

Do they have a sonic disadvantage that warranted the change to more common methods?

[crazyhorse]

Thicker pieces of wood (usually about 1/4" thick) are more prown to breaking than the thinner plies used in ply drums. If you steam bend you'll always have some pieces that just break and you have to start over. Plus it's a bit more intense of a process so think of ply drums as just an easier and cheaper method of steam bending.

[maddrummr]

That shell looks like a jolly rancher...i just want to eat it up.
no gold hardware on this one

those are VERY VERY nice cut edges

[crazyhorse]

Not my work on the edges I'm afraid... Ian at Witt Percussion did the shell including the edges. FINE work and I'll be buying more from him for sure. He's got a couple shells on Ebay I believe.

[Deathmetalconga]

Thicker pieces of wood (usually about 1/4" thick) are more prown to breaking than the thinner plies used in ply drums. If you steam bend you'll always have some pieces that just break and you have to start over. Plus it's a bit more intense of a process so think of ply drums as just an easier and cheaper method of steam bending.

That's true. For its weight, plywood is much stronger than natural wood - one of plywood's many advantages over whole wood, which also include resistance to cracking, shrinkage and twisting/warping.

Also, with pre-industrial materials and building technology, steam bent drums were probably even more fragile and expensive and difficult to make and prone to warping and cracking. The perfecting of industrial plywood in by Immanuel Nobel (yes, he also invented dynamite) around150 years ago allowed many more people to possess and play drums.