Hello friends of mine, let's talk about how to change a bad drum head on your bongos for an Xray film, it's a cheaper option and it also sounds amazing. We'll need of course an Xray film We'll need some masking tape, may be a measuring tape for making sure the size of the Xray film will cover the required area, a wrench, We'll also need a sharpened knife. Let's double check our list: an Xray film, masking tape, a measuring tape, a wrench, a knife, scissors and a bucket since we'll need water for removing a rim that's inside the skin head Let's start by removing the rubber tips at the bottom let's remove nuts and bults so we can loosen these lugs and the old skin, let's speed up our video notice the other metal rim on the bottom part that pulls the lugs; we have remove our old skin, this is the bottom rim.
Remove the other lugs and on this edge we'll place the Xray film. Let's remove the skin head from the other rim on the upper part, we need to remove the metal rim that's inside the skin head, Let's use the knife to cut the skin that's glued onto the sides of the skin head. I have speeded up the video a little and I suggest you to do it slowly, I don't want anybody to get injured or any accident after that, we'll push the skin down and it will reveal the metal rim that you can see now. Take the bucket and soak the skin head, leave it there for around 10 minutes. This way it will soften out the skin. I suggest to move the skin with your fingers while it starts to get wet so the hardest areas will get loosen faster.
Let's leave it for 10 minutes see how the skin is softer, let's move the skin up and down to release the metal rim and this is the rim I mentioned. Well, you see now this is the old skin head and it's broken area We need the Xray film to get the same shape of the old skin, you could see the distance from where the rim was to the top of the skin you could also check the diameter of the skin and take notes in case you purchased a replacement part. This rim is 8 inches long but be aware the top of the bongos is 7 1/4", we could say this is the standard size, given that one of the most prestigious companies that make percussion instruments (called Latin Percussion) established this size as a standard for the "macho" bongo which is the smaller drum.
The rim that we removed will have to fit this area and you'll place it over the Xray film. The other rim is the one to press the Xray film Let's place the metal rim on the Xray film and let's start to bend the film like if it was a paper sheet, we'll use the tape for all the pieces to remain there, after taping two sides we'll continue with the other sides as if it were to be a square. We bend the corners this way, let's tape the corners, all will remain where it needs. let's take the smaller drum (the macho drum) apart this way it will be easier to handle make sure the other rim on the bottom is centered I mean the holes that attach this drum to the other sheell need to be in the middle.
Let's place the new skin on the top of the drum shell. See how it starts to get the proper shape let's place the first lug and gently screw the firs nut, half of a turn is enough, the idea is to let it just hold the skin, proceed the same with the four nuts make sure the holes that hold the drum shell are in the middle of the two tensor rims. With just a few tweaks you can see it started to get the proper shape. We take the leftovers and pull them out this will be noisy. The parts that make a small triangle shape below the rim need to be tighten up as we remove these leftovers we start to slightly tighten the nuts up let's tighten them up across making sure all sides are even some nuts move easily others don't we continue to pull the Xray film out as we screw the nuts up let's continue to tight all the nuts making sure the bottom part of the bolts, the tips of these bolts are the same height for the four lugs.
Make sure they are are straight. Again, the tips of the lugs have to have the same distance. I have tuned the skin very high so far I checked again all lugs are correct. After making sure the rim is even we can start to uncover the Xray film. Let's remove the leftovers I have tuned it up too high; later on I will have to lower the pitch so it will be in tune with the other drum. I will use the scissors to remove the leftovers and I'll use the knife for the rest, that way it will be easier. I suggest to put all on a table and proceed slowly and easy.
Be careful, I summarized all in this video but it took me a long. See now, this is the way it should be. Let's put the two drums together and now let's put them to test. you might wonder how do they sound? I hope you liked it. .