A broken tambourine shell usually means that a new tambourine purchase is necessary. This can be exciting: I like getting new instruments, or sad: Any instrument that is damaged is a terrible thing.
All tambourine shells can break, from my famous $14 variety to top of the line brands like Grover and Black Swamp.
It's easy to replace a tambourine head but broken shells/missing pins and jingles usually means an early grave for the instrument. My early attempts at these repairs were stopgap measures until a new one was found. Wood or 'super' glue used on the shell turned out to be poor choices. It wasn't until last year that I really focused on shell repair. It happened during a Canyon Winds rehearsal when one of our tambourines exploded, pins and jingles were flying everywhere. Yep, it was the Resident Gorilla playing it. The shell had cracked between three sets of jingles near the head of the tambourine. We eventually replaced this with a Black Swamp tambourine but I still wanted to see if I could repair it, so I took it home.
I removed the head, pins and jingles. After the shell was completely dry from the head removal, I mixed 2 part epoxy and applied it between the cracks in the shell. I chose epoxy over wood glue since future removal and re-heading requires soaking in water. Doug cut a 3/8" X 1/4" strip of poplar for a reinforcing strip on the inside. I cut the piece in half to fit in my oven and boiled them for 2 hours.
To bend wood, it's supposed to be 'quarter sawn' and steamed but I didn't want to deal with buying or making a steam box or finding quarter sawn wood, hoping that boiling would work instead. I kerfed the strips to make the bending easier, placed them inside of the tambourine with clamps until everything was dry.
After drying I applied epoxy to the strip and shell. The jingles and pins were installed and a new head was put on.
Unfortunately the reinforcement strip developed 2 cracks during the installation so this attempt to strengthen the shell might help a little but not completely. However, during the construction of my Armillary Sphere last week I thought that the embroidery hoops that I used for that project might be a better solution for this one. I bought another 10" hoop, removed the clamping mechanism, cut the hoop shorter and used a riffler file for the final fitting.
I didn't have a tambourine without a head so I just placed this hoop in the lower inside of the same tambourine without gluing it. I just wanted to see if it would work. And for the most part it did. Because the hoop was a 10" (actually closer to 11") the profile didn't exactly fit. A 9" hoop would have worked better but I couldn't find one at the store.
So now I think I have the perfect fix for this project, all I need to do is wait until another tambourine breaks, buy a 9" embroidery hoop* and get more epoxy. And I won't have to deal with cutting strips, boiling, kerfing (or swearing).
* The variation of the inner diameter of a 10" tambourine can be as much as 5/16" due to the thickness of the shell and the quality control of the manufacturer. This still falls within the parameters of a 9" hoop, but it does validate George Orwell's statement "All 10" tambourines are equal, but some are more equal than others".
All tambourine shells can break, from my famous $14 variety to top of the line brands like Grover and Black Swamp.
It's easy to replace a tambourine head but broken shells/missing pins and jingles usually means an early grave for the instrument. My early attempts at these repairs were stopgap measures until a new one was found. Wood or 'super' glue used on the shell turned out to be poor choices. It wasn't until last year that I really focused on shell repair. It happened during a Canyon Winds rehearsal when one of our tambourines exploded, pins and jingles were flying everywhere. Yep, it was the Resident Gorilla playing it. The shell had cracked between three sets of jingles near the head of the tambourine. We eventually replaced this with a Black Swamp tambourine but I still wanted to see if I could repair it, so I took it home.
I removed the head, pins and jingles. After the shell was completely dry from the head removal, I mixed 2 part epoxy and applied it between the cracks in the shell. I chose epoxy over wood glue since future removal and re-heading requires soaking in water. Doug cut a 3/8" X 1/4" strip of poplar for a reinforcing strip on the inside. I cut the piece in half to fit in my oven and boiled them for 2 hours.
To bend wood, it's supposed to be 'quarter sawn' and steamed but I didn't want to deal with buying or making a steam box or finding quarter sawn wood, hoping that boiling would work instead. I kerfed the strips to make the bending easier, placed them inside of the tambourine with clamps until everything was dry.
I didn't have a tambourine without a head so I just placed this hoop in the lower inside of the same tambourine without gluing it. I just wanted to see if it would work. And for the most part it did. Because the hoop was a 10" (actually closer to 11") the profile didn't exactly fit. A 9" hoop would have worked better but I couldn't find one at the store.
So now I think I have the perfect fix for this project, all I need to do is wait until another tambourine breaks, buy a 9" embroidery hoop* and get more epoxy. And I won't have to deal with cutting strips, boiling, kerfing (or swearing).
* The variation of the inner diameter of a 10" tambourine can be as much as 5/16" due to the thickness of the shell and the quality control of the manufacturer. This still falls within the parameters of a 9" hoop, but it does validate George Orwell's statement "All 10" tambourines are equal, but some are more equal than others".
All those film and literary allusions! Great blog, Little Brother!
ReplyDeleteWho knew that a wooden embroidery hoop would work! :)
ReplyDelete