Tucson Taiko Kyokai

Tucson Taiko Co-Op                  
 

What do we play on?

Being a Co-Op, we make our own drums, of course!

We have a unique wealth of building talent in our group, lead by Lead Craftsman Eric.  He made his first drum 6 years ago with the support of Tony Trapasso from Fushicho Taiko (Phoenix Taiko Drummers), and has been continuing to develop his skills at leading international Woodworking Schools - Rosewood Studios in Almonte, Ontario, Canada and College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg, California. He considers himself lucky to be able to receive guidance and advice from a leading expert in Chinese joinery and a College of the Redwoods graduate - Mr. Yeung Chan.

As a Co-Op, we build our own drums!

We have periodic "Drum Building Campaigns" and you are welcome to join us when we start another one - we have another one in spring 2008!

    We of course have to put in some action photos from our 2006 Drum Building Campaign!  The goal is to make 8 chu drums, and one big boy for Beth and Brink! 

Mo made this whole process possible with her road trip to Northern California for a truck load of wine barrels (she swears they were empty when she found them...  sure Mo...)

Our construction process consists of the following phases:

• Stripping the insides of staves off and cutting slots in for the biscuits, then gluing;

• Rough sanding the outsides of the glued drums;

• Routing in a reinforcing ring into the top and bottom and securing them in place;

• Finish sanding, staining, and mounting hardware;

• Stretching and tacking on the heads;

• Standing proudly along side our new drums (we are really looking forward to that part!)

So here we go with phase 1:  stripping, biscuiting and gluing:

Here is Brink doing a dry fit check on his biscuited staves.  Everyone take note - this is how is should be done - seiza on the rough concrete floor...

Poncho is back there working hard on stripping the wine deposits from the staves!  His wife is not really believing our story about why he goes home smelling like red wine, so we figured we better get a bit of saw dust on him...

Erin is doing a QC inspection on her staves before getting ready for glue up.

Ofelia and Poncho are biscuiting another set of staves.  A bunch of hard workers, huh?

Now this was a fun one - wrestling with all the glued sections of Brink's big boy!  Here is the Co-Op in action!

Now if you want to see what PROUD looks like, take a look at Brink!  YEAH!!!

Congratulations Brink!  Very Nice Job!!!

Now Phase 2:  Sanding, Sanding, Sanding, and then a little more sanding:

Phase 3:  After Routing out the reinforcing ring of plywood, staining and mounting the hardware, we were ready to stretch the heads:

We use five (5 ton) hydraulic Jacks, and 8 comealongs.  We put some serious "hurt" on those cow hides!

And what would Taiko be without some exertion?  Everyone gets a chance to stretch the skins during the drum heading process!

There is nothing like playing on a drum that you made!

Send mail to info@tucsontaikokai.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2006 Tucson Taiko Kyokai
Last modified: 10/13/07