Summit Drums - Okume (Mahogany) sealing +finishing project
This project was for finishing two blank drum shells from Summit drum shells. These particular two 12 inch and 14 inch Okume (“oh-cue-may”) which is part of the Mahogany family which some of you may know comes in hundreds and hundreds of varieties. We started here by just checking over the shells, lightly sanding, masking off and prepping for grain filling coats which was applied two-three coats rubbing back between each coat and then we let that settle for three or four days before lightly sanding again and preparing for our final top clear coat of satin the satin clear coat went on pretty straight forward as you would expect, we just build up the layers a bit of sanding in between with the exception of the final coats and final layers being the actual final finished product. The shells, themselves present quite nice, a neatly finished lightweight shell, however I did find that during the sanding sealer process that the shells really seemed to have a wicking effect on the sanding sealer, really absorbing quite a lot of liquid so it was to my advantage that I allowed proper curing time between coats so I was able to monitor it; aside from that everything was pretty straight forward we cut in some vintage spec bearing edges (¼” outer / 45deg inner) on the shell to finish off and drilled it to the layout that the client had requested.
I really looking forward to actually working more with some of these Summit drum shells and some of the other species that they have on offer.
Here you can see the shells after I've applied the sanding sealer coats, it's an pretty even finish but quite dull to look at, you can start to see the grain and the color in the timber start to really lift out of the shell and become much more apparent, so the reason I use sanding sealer on these particular shells was really just to account for the wide grain and the softness of the actual timber itself, as I mentioned previously the shells seemed to have quite a high wicking effect with the sanding sealer, so had I just put clear coat straight onto the raw timber - it still would have worked but it would have used up a lot more valuable material which and it would take a lot longer to build the layers up and just be a lot more wasteful to only use a clear coat. We achieve 90%+ of the grain filling with this sanding sealer.
Finally here you can see the two finished shells in satin clear with bearing edges cut, holes drilled, air vents drilled + fitted and all other finishing / checks completed. These shells turned out amazingly beautiful. They resonate wonderfully and I have a feeling they're going to be quite forgiving with the tuning and perform really well in any tuning or setting! As I mentioned earlier, I look forward to working more with the new Summit drum range and all the different species that are on offer.
