Head Repairs

This section assumes your head is a natural organic skin, either goat skin, cowhide, or something similar. These repairs do not apply to synthetic heads. There are often times when replacing the head isn't an option, either because of funds, time schedule, or because of convenience. The repairs I'm listing here are not meant to be a permanent fix, only a way to get you through until you can get the head replaced. Whenever an issue comes up that involves needing repairs on the skin, the best option is always to replace it. Temporary fixes can often mute some sounds and kill the liveliness of the drum. If you want to tackle replacing the head yourself, I have some very good info in my re heading your djembe section. This section can be useful for any type of rope-tuned organic skin hand drum. I also sell everything you will need to build your drum back up to it's full potential.

The most common repair to a djembe head is that it has developed a small pinhole or a thin spot in the skin that has started to tare. By catching this before it goes all the way through, you can prolong the life of your head by a few months or even more depending on how often you play and your preference on tuning and tightness of the head. If the tare in the skin is over a half inch, you may be out of luck and just need to replace the head. Check out over to my re heading your djembe for more info on that.

To repair a small pinhole or small tare you'll need some fine grit sandpaper (400 to 600 grit is good) a cyanoacrylate glue such as gorilla glue or a super glue. White and yellow wood glues don't do as well for this application. A dust mask is a good idea as you don't want to breathe in hide dust.

First you'll want to loosen a bit of tension on the head, you don't have to take out all the diamonds, but take out enough so that you cannot get a crisp good slap out of the drum. Next you'll want to LIGHTLY sand the area around the hole or tare making sure the skin dust stays on the head. Put a just enough glue to cover the tare, and give it a few seconds to dry to a tacky consistency, not still wet, but not hard either. Fast drying super glue is perfect for this. Once the glue is tacky, push the dust from the sandpaper into the glue and do a bit more sanding. This gets skin dust and glue to bond to for a fake bit of skin that is fairly strong. You may need to repeat the process a few times for a larger tare. You can do this to pock marks in your skin or if you see a scar that you are worried might cause a problem. For a larger area, it might be a good idea to cut some skin and glue it under the tare before you start the process... though if your tare is this big, you should really consider replacing the head.

After you have finished and let the glue cure to its total strength (different for each glue so read the bottle) you can start tuning up the djembe again. Tune it up slowly and listen for any pops or cracks around the repaired area. Play your djembe or hand drum a good bit before you try cranking it down, just to make sure if you need to do the process again you can before it pops. Once you are confident it's good, you can tune it up. You probably wont want it super tight, as this fix is temporary. It's possible to get a few good months out of your skin after this point and even with it fairly tight, but it is a snake waiting to bite. If you just play leisurely without your drum very tight, this might hold up good enough to last the life of your skin.

If you have any specific questions or would like to add anything to this section please contact me at info@rhythmhousedrums.com . I'll do my best to help!