Preparing the rings.

The rings hold the skin on the drum and are used to tighten the skin. Consequently they have to be pretty tough to resist deforming under the pressure of the skin.

My rings are made of 6mm galvanised steel rod, purchased from my local metal dealers. Some people use re-bar and traditionally, rings may even have been made from several rounds of wire, presumably twisted together.

Why four rings?

Most Ashiko and Djembe use three rings (flesh ring, upper rope ring, lower rope ring), I use four.

I used three on my first drum and found that the ropes around the lower rope ring dug into the relatively soft pine and gouged little furrows up the drum until the ring itself came into tight contact with the side of the drum. This is not only unsightly, but it also makes it almost impossible to tighten the skin as the lower rope ring seems to creep that little bit further up the drum every time.

I now add a fourth ring that sits just above the lower rope ring. This ring has no rope attached to it as so sits hard against the drum. The slightly larger rope ring, with it's ropes, sits against this ring and so cannot gouge furrows up the drum. These drums are much better at holding their tune.

Forming the rings.

This page will describe the method I first settled on for making the rings, I have since found what should prove to be a much easier method, which I will describe at the end, that I plan to use on the next two drums I am about to start.

If you intend to make a lot of drums, and live in the US, then you can get a reasonably priced ring roller from Harbor Freight. I considered making a ring roller myself, but a few trials proved this wasn't as easy as I had hoped.

Instead I took a block of Jarrah (West Australian hardwood) and cut a arc to match the size of ring I wanted to form, and put this is a metal vice and successively clamped and bent the steel rod until it more or less formed the size ring I wanted.

The top two rings need to have an internal diameter slightly larger than the outside diameter of the drum, enough to allow for a cloth wrapping around the rings, and two thicknesses of skin (in a wet, bloated state) on both sides of the drum. About 5-6mm on both sides, or at least 12mm in total. While close fitting rings seems to be desirable, it's best to err on the generous side – you can't do much to overcome rings that are too small to fit over the top of the drum.

The bottom rings are less critical. If the rings are too large, they will sit higher on the drum, and there will be less room between the rings to do the Mali weave to tighten the skin. I measure the circumference of the drum about half way up, and work out the diameter from that (d = c / 3.14159).

I add around 6mm to the diameter (or 19mm of circumference) of the bottom ring. To do this, simply cut the ring 18mm long than the other lower ring. This ensures the bottom ring stands off from the side of the drum (so the ropes dont gouge the drum) but still overlap the third ring.

This photo shows the bending block, with an arc cut into it to match the size of ring that I want to bend. I need to make two such blocks, one for the two top rings and one for the two bottom rings.

The vice is opened wide so that the end of the steel rod can be fed into the block, and then the vice is wound tight, initially bending the rod into shape. It helps if you pull on the rod near where it exits the block, this will help the bend. Be careful not to pull too hard and form a kink.

Then the vice is loosened and the rod pushed around through the block, and tightened again. Continue this until you have formed a complete circle.



This photo shows the almost completed ring. In general, the block wont produce exactly the required diameter, the metal will spring back a bit, but by going round and round lots of times, you can get it pretty close.

Then its a matter of measuring the circumference to determine where to cut the excess so that the ring will form the desired diameter circle. You can see in this photo that the excess has been cut off, and the ends almost meet.



This photo shows an attempt to get two rings to match up. Not entirely successful, but close enough. The vice-grips are being used to clamp the two rings together at that point while I adjust the bend in one ring to try to match the other.

The rings will eventually be wrapped in cotton cloth and have some ropes tied around them, so it's not imperative that they match perfectly.



Once the rings have been bent, and cut to length, the cut ends need to be filed so that they meet flush and then the need to be welded. The weld needs to be very strong to resist the lacing pressure. I take my rings to a local metal fabrication shop and they use a MIG or TIG welder (costs about $2.50 per ring)



While relatively low-tech the above method of bending rings is a lot of work. I have since found, in the yellow pages (under tube benders) , a local company who can roll a 6m length of this steel rod into a coil of any diameter (within limits) for about $10 a length.. All I then have to do is cut the coil into six rings and take it to my friendly welder. I will need to get coils bent to the circumference of the top and bottom rings. I figure I can get around six rings out of each coil or length of steel.

Wrapping the rings.

Once the ring is welded, and any sharp or knobbly bits of weld have been filed back, we wrap the ring in a strip of cotton cloth. This is mostly decorative.

Tear or cut cotton material into strips of about 2-3cm wide.

This photo shows how the trailing edge of the strip can be folded over to give a neat edge, and to cover the lose ends of the fabric so it does not fray.

We need to make small adjustments as we go because we are winding a flat strip onto a curved ring. If the strip runs out before you are finished, just overlap another strip with few drops of craft glue and continue wrapping.

I also wrap extra thickness around the third ring, this is the ring that will sit flush against the side of the drum, and hold the lower rope ring in place. The extra thickness of wrapping effectively decreases the inside diameter of the ring and pushes it lower, helping the ropes around the lower ring ring to stand further off the drum sides.

I also wrap cloth around the flesh ring, even though this ring will be covered by the skin and not visible. This is really just so the skin does not stick to the ring. Some people paint the ring to stop it rusting (I use galvanised steel). Rust will expand and eat into the skin and could cause the skin to pop.



Before tying rope loops onto the two rope rings, you have to decide how many verticals you will have, and therefore how many loops around each ring.

I have seen many photos of Ashiko drums with few widely spaced verticals (up to 12). My first Ashiko had 12 verticals and this proved to be not enough. The diamonds in the Mali Weave were too wide and I could not get fine control over how tight I could pull the skin. I now prefer 18-24 verticals.

This photo shows a circle of card marked with 24 equal sectors. Lay the wrapped rope rings over the center and mark with chalk the location of the 24 loops as shown.



Here we see the beginnings of attaching ropes to the lower rope ring.

You can see how I use my fingers to form a uniform size loop.

For the top rope ring, I would probably fit two fingers in each loop.



This photo shows more clearly how the ropes are tied to form the loops.



This photo shows the completed ring, with 24 reasonably uniform loops and the ends woven into the knots.



Step 9: Attaching the skin

Glenn's home