I'm not good with build pics because I dont work to plan. At any time I might easily just make a small mistake and then put it in the scrap bin and start again with a completely different design, so then I've wasted the time to take all the pics. Its only when the last piece gets glued that I know if its a keeper or not.
Plan "A" was a circle with 16 staves, each one cut with 12 degree bevel edges. When it came to gluing the circle that idea didnt work so I ended up with 16 and a 1/4 staves to get the correct size (the 1/4 stave is buried at the bottom).
Then I made a little turntable for the belt sander, glued the bubinga circle to a smaller circle of ply with a centre hole, and then rotated it on the pin in the turntable so that i could remove all the edges and make the shape uniform.
That actually went exactly to plan and i'm very pleased with it as there are no joins visible on the drum.
After gluing it to the supports and the base it looked a little fragile, so I drilled a 3 mm hole down diagonally through the drum and supports into the base on each side, and used brass rods and 2 part epoxyed them into the holes.
Then the wide brass band was epoxyed into the inner edge to support the top half just in case somebody picked it up forcefully from the top.
I didnt use screws, 1 because i could not get enough force onto a screw with only a stubby screwdriver, and 2 because the bubinga is so hard I was scared it would break out even though I had drilled a pilot hole.
I used my normal wipe on poly finish because I really like gloss rather than satin finish. Then 2 coats of a good wood furniture wax and a lot of buffing.
The mechanism was bought from a wood work suppliers in the UK, sorry, no idea where it came from apart from that. All the cogs and second hand actually move even though its just a battery motor. When I bought it my first idea was a grandfather clock, but that plan also changed.
I finished off with a red felt base to stop the wood picking up grit if its slid across other wood.
