The Garage Drum Builder

2009 Snare Drum Olympics

If you’re a drum builder, you have a great opportunity to showcase your wares. The 2009 Snare Drum Olympics will be hosted by Not So Modern Drummer at The Southern Drum Show in Nashville, Tennessee. Anyone can enter, whether you have a two month backlog of customer orders, or if ...

Episode 6 – Drilling For Hardware

This week's episode is about drilling holes for your drums hardware. All that time put into accurately laying out your drum is worthless if you can’t drill a hole exactly where the layout lines intersect. I'll show you how to use a brad point drill bit to create very precise ...

Episode 5 – Marking The Shell

This week's episode is all about shell layout. Precise layout is key to keeping all the hardware on your drum straight and even. I’ll show you where to apply masking tape to the drum to keep from getting any marks on the finished shell. Then I’ll demonstrate how to use ...

Episode 4 – Edge Preparation

This weeks episode is a short one detailing the preparation of a drums edges. This is the first step in the construction process because we need a nice square edge to reference from when marking out our lug locations. Also a flat and true edge is paramount for cutting proper bearing ...

Episode 3 – Truing/Marking Jig

In this episode I make a truing/marking jig. On one side is a layout mat which is used for marking the hardware locations on a drum shell. On the opposite side is glued a sheet of glass. When sandpaper is attached to the glass it will be used to flatten ...

Episode 2 – Making Parts

Before building any drums, we must build two jigs to make it possible to work on round shells. In this episode I'll show you how to make parts for these jigs from 1/2" mdf using a router guided by a straightedge. Download This Episode.

Episode 1 – The Tools

Welcome to the first episode of The Garage Drum Builder. I've started this show because of the lack of video content on the market about drum building. My goal is that this site would become the best source on the web for anyone interesting in building, modifying or repairing custom ...