The animal hides used in drum making are not leather, they have not been tanned. They are a stiff material called vellum, or in a less treated state, rawhide. In order to make the skin workable it is necessary to soak it in water, which makes it softer, more flexible & elastic. In this state it can be cut stretched & shaped prior to drying.

When soaked skin dries it tightens up & becomes stiffer again. It naturally assumes any shape which is forced onto it. The art of drum making exploits this; we attach the skin to a suitable body or frame when it is wet making sure that the force of its shrinking is even & will not pull it off or damage it or the chosen frame. Then we leave it to dry as slowly as possible until it becomes a taught resonating membrane. It is very impressionable stuff so that one must always remember not to touch it too much or leave it in contact with anything while it is drying in case it dries out of shape. Try to always make any necessary adjustments to the skin while it is completely soaked & then leave it well alone until it has dried.

This is an art, & like any other there is no substitute for experience! Particularly when making a frame drum like a bodhran which has a large diameter, care is needed to get just the right amount of tension in the skin under ideal playing conditions. This means not too damp, which makes the skin a bit soft & therefore less tense & vibrant; or too hot & dry which makes the tone too high & loud & can also damage the drum. Tension should be as even as possible, otherwise you might see a rippling effect in the skin when it is less tense on a wet or humid day. Most skins will start to ripple or become deformed in old age, but its a matter of degree how much this will affect the sound or playability of the drum.

YOU NEED:

frame

vellum disc

a bath or bin of water large enough to completely immerse the skin

staples or fine tacks

packet of furniture tacks

wooden mallet or a piece of 2x2 for banging them in

ribbon

strong scissors or snips

a screwdriver for prising out badly placed staples or tacks

a hammer

1. Get everything you need together on a stable work surface which is large enough to hold the skin laid out flat as well as your other tools & things.

2. Soak the skin until it is completely waterlogged. You will notice that when it is nearly ready the unsoaked areas are spots of brighter, paler, denser colour & are stiffer; wait until they are gone. Do not use hot water! This may take anything up to an hour depending upon the thickness of the skin.

3. Lay down the wet skin on your work surface. Make sure that the outside is face down; that's the smoother side with the hair follicles on it rather than the fibrous looking rough inner surface.

4. Keep the skin wet at all times! This is particularly important if you are working on a hot sunny day, out of doors in the wind or indoors under very warm dry conditions.

5. Lay the frame onto the skin dead centre, with the smooth outer rim uppermost. Take a good look to get an idea of how big the overlap is. This will be the minimum overlap which you will want all the way around because when you start stretching the skin it will get bigger. It is really easy to pull too much on one side, get the skin off centre & then stretch it unevenly in your efforts to compensate. If this seems likely, stop & start again. Staples can be pulled out quite easily by using a screwdriver or something as a lever.

6. The first four staples or tacks which you use to attach the skin to the frame are very important. Line them up with the dowel rod handles to make sure that they are evenly spaced. To place the first one, lift up the frame & skin together holding them firmly in the area to be stapled & put one in about 2cm from the edge. The rest of the skin will flop about, but just ignore it. Just make sure that you hold that one bit in the right position.

7. Put the skin & frame flat on the table again exactly as they were you started. Recentre the frame. Pick up the opposite side, holding the skin & frame firmly in position & pull the skin until there is some tension between your hold & the first staple. Don't pull too hard, but you should see & feel the skin stretch a little bit.

8. Put it all down again & recentre. The line of tension will be visible & & should run down the middle of the skin so that the overlap is the same on both sides. Pick a side & repeat the process. Pull a little before putting in the third staple. Repeat again for the fourth staple, creating another line of tension, & a cross in the centre of the drum.

9. Put it face down again. Around the edge of the frame, between the four staples, will be four big flaps of loose skin. Assuming that your skin is circular (if it isn't quite, compensate) they should be roughly the same size. Check for any tucks, ripples or unexpected folds. If you find anything that doesn't look right pull out & restaple as appropriate.

10. The next four staples should be midway between the first four, dividing the circle into eighths. Put in the first, then pull in any slack & put in the one opposite. Don't pull too hard but by the time you are finished the skin should not be floppy any more.

11. Hold up the drum by its handle & tap the centre of the skin once with the tip of a finger. It won't make any sound of course, but if you hold it so that the light reflects from it, when you tap it you should be able to see a series of circular ripples appear in it. They are quite hard to see, but if you can they will give you a feeling about whether the tension is even or not. If something is wrong it may show as an asymmetry or an area with much more or less tension in it than the rest. Making adjustments by replacing staples is the best solution for such problems & the earlier it is done the easier & safer it will be.

12. Put in eight more staples. Pull in the skin between the two adjacent ones with your finger before stapling, but no more than it has already been pulled on either side. Always follow a new staple with its opposite number. At this stage & those that follow there is as much danger, if not more, of overstretching as in the earlier stages. When you have finished, hold the drum up & tap it again. The circular ripples should be clearer now.

13. Now go round & round putting staples in between the existing ones. Pull carefully, there is still a danger of making the skin too tight. Do this until you are satisfied that the skin is firmly & evenly attached. I usually stop when there is a space about he size of a staple between each one, which would be about 1cm apart if you were using tacks.

14. Hold up the drum by the edge of the newly attached skin & trim off the excess with scissors. Keep it! If cut into long strips it can be used for attaching things to the drum, tying around the crosspiece of the handles or in making other drums in the future.

15. Hold one end of the ribbon over the staples & the edge of the skin & use a staple to attach it. Wind it around until the ends overlap & fix it in place using the brass furniture tacks. Use a wooden mallet or a piece of 2x2 to bang them in rather than a hammer because they are very soft & bendy & too much force will waste them. The pattern & spacing of the tacks is a matter of taste but try to space them evenly & be careful that the ribbon does not move out of place while you are doing this.

16. The ends of the furniture tacks will be sticking out inside the frame. Hammer them flat using a hammer with a small head.

17. Leave the skin to dry. Avoid drying it by direct sunlight or artificial means such as central heating. If it dries too quickly it may tighten too much & this will exaggerate any unevenness in the skin tension possibly leading to a permanent ripple or dimple appearing. Do not bang or try to play the drum at all until it has completely dried & tightened. This too can cause permanent deformation.

The newly dried skin will seem hard & rough at first & may be a little tighter than you'd like. They are always like this when new; I call them "virgins". Virginal drums will lose some of their initial hardness to the touch with use & correct treatment & their sound will become more mellow with age. I have been told that there's an Irish saying that you don't buy a bodhran on the basis of what it sounds like when new for this reason. To get rid of the roughness & generally protect & nourish the skin its a good idea to rub in very small amounts of olive oil, about once a year.

Generally you should protect the drum from extremes of heat & dryness. If it seems too dry & tight then moisten it with some water to soften it a little. (Guinness is mostly water & there's a story that it is popularly used for this purpose, but never put anything onto your drum skin which may damage it; if in doubt about a fluid, don't use it!) Most of the bodhrans which I get to repair have self destructed; the skin having pulled itself from the frame when it dried out too much & got too tight. (The second commonest reason for a drum needing a new skin is that it has been damaged by a child, something else worthy of note.)

If it gets too damp, for instance on a rainy or humid day, or in a building with damp problems, the skin will become soft & the drum tone will deepen until it finally disappears, having become too loose & floppy for play. It will return to normal if it is gently warmed by the fire or radiator or in the sun but this must be done with caution. Some people place their hand between the handle & the skin & push against it to increase the tension & make it playable in the damp, but I disrecommend this as it causes a permanent dimple to eventually appear in the skin.

If you wish to decorate the drumskin you can draw on it with a soft pencil & make your designs more permanent by using coloured inks. These have the advantage of not damaging the skin surface or affecting the tone as well as being hard wearing. I disrecommend the use of any kind of paint which tends to form a skin on the skin & can cause problems. There is a Native American technique of using water based pigments to decorate the skin when it has just been put on & is still wet, but I have no personal experience of this technique.

Barry Patterson, 1993.