Tambourine Upgrade

I have kept an old $14 tambourine around so that my students can see and hear the difference between this and a quality Grover or Black Swamp brand. Last month the head split which gave me the opportunity to experiment with some ideas that I've had for sometime.

Modify the tambourine to install 'captive' jingle pins.
Install a used head.

When installing a replacement head you use a skin that is at least 2" larger than the diameter of the shell (12" skin for a 10" tambourine). Since I had an 11 1/8" skin that was removed from another 10" tambourine this gave me the chance to experiment.

I removed the pins and stamped steel jingles. inverted the tambourine in a warm water bath to loosen the old glue and removed the split head. I then removed all of the residual glue from the shell with a stiff nylon brush and began soaking the replacement head.

Since the top of the shell was now softened from the soaking, it was an easy job of drilling the pin hole from the bottom through the top. Most tambourines use a 16 gauge pin so I used 16 ga. finish nails for the replacement pins. These nails have a 'T' shaped top so I could counter sink them into the top of the shell. I had some copper and German silver jingles that I made (see 'Making Tambourine Jingles') to replace the stamped steel jingles.

After allowing the shell to completely dry, I put a coat of glue (Tite Bond) on the top and sides. The replacement head was removed from the water and rolled in a bath towel to remove the excess water. I centered the head as evenly as possible and used a 12" hose clamp to let dry over night.

The head was trimmed before removing the clamp and 1/2" tape was used to finish the project.

The heading worked but I think it's safer to use the 'adding 2" formula' for optimum results. However the captive pins worked beautifully. The only way to lose pins or jingles would be if the shell were to break or the head removed.
It worked out so well that I'm going to have to buy a new $14 tambourine.

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