In recent years, I practice Capoeira, Brazilian martial art that includes poetry, Playing the traditional instruments and of course traffic, Self-defense, Acrobatics and more…
Common to all capoeira instruments is that they are simple tools created by handmade”The poor slaves who came from Africa to Brazil in the 19th-20th centuries.
In the beginning, Capoeira had two main tools, The Brimbau – A tree branch on which is stretched a metal string and at its base a hollow and hard pumpkin. The brimbo is a percussion instrument (Even though he has a string) And play on it p”Tapping a stick on the metal string.
Brimbau. Image:https://centerforworldmusic.org/
The second tool is the Pandiro. A kind of pick-up drum with cymbals, But the main difference between it and a pick-up drum is that the pandiro has a stretched skin that allows you to drum on it with your hand.
Pandiro Picture:https://www.thomann.de/
When my Capoeira teacher celebrated 50 This year, I decided that building Pandiro would be a great gift for him
The main problem that exists in the Pandiro drums that are sold in stores, (Even the most expensive of which can reach up 500 Euros per unit) Is the form of preparation of the wooden ring. The wooden ring is made of two pieces of wood about 5 m thick”From each of which they are bent in a round pattern and glued so that the seam line of the inner ring does not coalesce with that of the outer ring. As you can see in the following pictures:
The image on the right: You can see the bent wood and in the left picture the rings after gluing. An internal seam strip and an external seam strip can be seen.
Rings glued with this method are very sensitive to moisture, And over time the adhesion weakens and the wood begins to separate. Once that happens – The drum was destroyed.
So I decided that what I really needed to do was learn how to do it right. I chose a much longer method but one that would ensure the durability of the tool for many, many years.
We set off!
Preparation of the wooden ring
Pandiro has several parts: The wooden ring, Rescue, skin, Two metal rings for stretching the skin and tensioners.
In this project I built the wooden ring, And I made the thrillers and the anchors for the thrillers.
The lifeguards, The skin and metal rings for stretching the skin were rescued from old Russian pandiros.
Instead of using thick wood strips 5 From”From, I took pieces of mahogany veneer half a m thick”M only.
The one who helped me a lot in this project is Nir Hollander, A good friend, Wenger is an amateur and very talented, Who has a small carpentry shop.
Nir made a mold in the carpentry shop, on which we wrapped a piece of veneer about 3 meters long each time, which created a ring the thickness of 1.5 From”From.
We cut the mold in half and fixed the two halves using a piece of wood. The purpose of the cut is to allow the mold to be extracted after the winding is finished.
We started the craft of wrapping.
We took pieces of veneer half a millimeter thick, width 100 From”M and a length of about 3 meters.
We measured the scope of the template, And in the first wrap we applied carpenter's glue all over the veneer – Except for an area the length of the perimeter of the template – In order for the veneer not to stick to the mold itself (To be on the safe side, we also expected the mold with nylon masking tape)
After finishing the winding, we fastened the veneer to the mold with the help of a rubber arterial blocker.
Each wrap added to the mold about 1.5-2mm – The goal- Thickness of 9.5 From”From.
This is what it looks like after the first wrap:
For the next few days and weeks we repeated the process until we reached a wall thickness of 9.5 From”From.
After drying the last veneer – We mounted the mold on a hinge above a table saw and cut a ring from the center of the coiled wood
Next step Marking and drilling the lifeline holes.
I copied the location of the holes and their shape from a ruined Pandiro ring to the new ring.
We used half of our winding mold to create a fixture that would fix the ring while drilling the holes.
The lifeline holes are ellipses – So I drilled both ends of the ellipse with a drill and then we made another fixer to lower the material between the holes with a rotor that is placed horizontally.
In the following picture you can see the device we built in order to position the rotor horizontally and open the ellipses of the lifesaving channels precisely. (The view of the rotor protrudes from the white board into the rail)
Next we used the router again- This time with a radius beat – To round the edges of the drum and allow a comfortable grip.
Finnish!
I sanded the ring with sandpaper in the grit going up and down”The following arrangement: 80,120,150,320,400,600,800,1000,1500,2000
Until a silky smooth touch is obtained.
After the first sanding set, I wiped the ring with a damp rag and did another sanding of the tall grits only (1000, 1500, 2000)
To finish I applied a layer of water-based varnish for a shiny look and protected wood.
Adding branding
Every capoeira has a nickname in the world of capoeira. My teacher's nickname (Given to him p”His master) Is a comedy (Comedy)
Skip the source of the nickname, But I wanted this Pandiro to be personal for him so I was looking for ways to make an embossing on the wood of a logo he made especially for him..
As for the logo – From my teacher's Facebook page I took a very familiar picture of him while jumping-kicking
Credit ALMA DO JOGO – Capoeira
From the image I just cut out his silhouette and added the caption COMEDIA below it
Satisfied with the result – I was looking for a way to imprint the logo on the tree. And I came across a YouTube video that demonstrated this ingenious method that uses plain sticker paper from any stationery store, Water-based laser and varnish printer.
I did everything exactly according to the video, And that was the result:
Preparing the thrillers
The purpose of the thrillers is to stretch the skin on the pandiro and allow control of the sound obtained from the drumming.
The tensioner is built anchored to the wooden ring through which a rod that is rounded at the end in the shape of a hook passes and catches the traction ring of the skin. On the other side of the pole there is a thread on which the nut sits. The rotation of the nut causes the rod to shorten and stretch the skin. The following image shows a standard Pandiro thriller.
But I did not want something standard!
So I enlisted the help of another good friend – Yanir Deschel, Together they planned and he engraved for me these amazing brass anchors:
After the engraving of the anchor was milled to create a surface for the nut and drilling
ולבסוף – Polishing and polishing
In the Pandiro I built were required 7 Thrillers.
For the production of hooks I bought M5 screws with a long barrel
Together with Yanir I made a small device for bending the head of the screw. The screws entered the fixture and were bent with the help of hammer blows.
I cut my head with an angle grinder
Until the result is obtained:
Rescue
I repaired the lifeguard from two Russian Pandiro drums. I took all the lifeguards, I mounted each lifeguard on a small fixture made of a threaded rod and two nuts, I attached the fixture to a pillar drill and started sanding the cymbals with grit papers 800 , 1000 , 1500 And 2000
הרכבה
After completion of production of all parts – I approached the assembly work.
The lifeguards were first assembled, The throttle anchors were then screwed into place, The skin was placed on top of the pandiro and the hooks of the thrillers were assembled over it and stretched. The assembly process is described in the attached video.
After approx- 15 Minutes of assembly the final product was obtained:
I want to thank Liner Deshel and Nir Hollander who helped me a lot in this project. Nir is an amateur carpenter with amazing carpentry and lots of experience in wood and building various musical instruments. Yanir is an engraved artist, Milling and finding engineering solutions. All the decisions in this project were shared. While writing I used a single body for convenience only. Thank you.