Drum Beater Tutorial

One of the drums the people at the conference used was a big plastig barrel and the beaters were made of wooden dowling and gaffa taped tops. I was inspired to make my own. We have lots of big plastic buckets with lids at school(the powder paint comes in them) and they make good drums. I went down to the diy shop yesterday in search of wooden dowling and tape so I could make my own. I was going to use paper or fabric to make the bungy top, but then saw the perfectly designed for the job pipe lagging, the interior circumference of which exactly matched the exterior one of the dowling. How to make them is fairly self-explanatory-cutting up the dowling and the lagging, fitting one to the other, taping them together. The dowling was about 22cm long. I used a piece of tape over the top, three smaller pieces to fix to the stick, then three pieces around-the top, bottom of the beater part and the stick-to neaten it up. I made 12 beaters, which used three lengths of dowling, a roll and a bit of tape and one length of lagging. It probably works out just under £1 per beater.

I used pretty paints-sample pots and iridescent ones, topped by two layers of glitter glaze-a decorating one I have had for years. I had forgotten about how the glitter flakes, so to make it safe (health and safety-glitter in eyes!) I then coated each one with one coat of varnish. It happened to be a craft varnish but any would do. Hopefully this will preserve them a bit as well if they are used outside. I did colour pairs.

I will report back in a while once they have been consumer tested! I also cut up some lengths of the lagging as that is good to hit stuff with too-including the tops of your legs to make a beat.