Affixing the Hide
Stitching the Heads
Attaching the Heads
Painting the Heads

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Finding Hide and Rings

Hides
You can use a great variety of animal hides for okedo heads: cow, horse, elk, deer, goat, and buffalo. I have used the first three.

Here's an advice page I wrote about Making Drumheads with Rawhide.

For the cowhide, I have ordered pre-cut 26" calfskin heads online from Mid-East Mfg., Inc. It is possible to specify thin, medium, or thick hide. I chose medium, but when it arrived, it seemed too thin, so I re-ordered thick ones. They are still pretty thin. They sound great, but I always worry about durability.

The best thing is to choose your hides in person. I have found hides in two Indian (Amerind, Native American) stores, one in Escondido, north of San Diego, and one in Oakhurst, near Yosemite National Park. You might try looking for such a shop near you.

If you buy an entire hide, you will have a lot of choices where to make your cuts. Decide if you want a thick hide or thin one. Generally, the hide along the backbone and near the shoulders is the thickest. The hide on the flanks and belly is thinner.

The horsehide at left was used for two drums (four heads): a katsugi and my daibyoshi. If you click the photo, you can see that the daibyoshi heads have already been cut from the bottom, which was the flanks and loins. These daibyoshi heads are quite thin—too thin for a katsugi. You can see the chalk marks where I cut the katsugi heads. I used the thick material on either side of the backbone at the shoulders.

Rings
My choices is 10 mm (3/8") or 8mm (5/16") steel for the rings.7mm (1/4") seems too light, but you might try them, since that is the standard guage for African jembe drums, and are readily available online.

I have heard of some people trying alternatives, such as hollow aluminum for the rings. They would be light and rust-proof.

I also ordered the steel rings online. They are rings made for African-style jembe (djembe) drums. You can get them in all diameters, custom-made. I usually order from Yendor, who is good to work with and makes nice rings.

I also order from from Rhthym Traders. , whose standard ring size is 1/4". The first order, I wanted 3/8", and they kindly accommodated me. At that time, they were called Toko Imports. I don't know if they will still make 3/8" for you.

The main difference is Yendor has 5/16" rings and Rhythm Traders has 1/4". Both are strong enough for the drum, but I prefer 5/16" because I think the slightly larger size looks better, and also, after you sew the hide on the rings, it can dry tight and warp the rings a little. This is only until you mount the heads and tighten them, and hasn't caused a problem, but it makes me nervous. You can prevent it by sewing, cutting the tuning holes, and mounting the heads before the heads completely dry. I did my daibyoshi like this. I did the shell edging and painting, and the head construction in 14 hours straight with a dinner break.

Initial Preparation

At left are tools you may find handy for this job. I don't use all these tools. Some are for tough jobs like stukeshime-daiko (shime), which require high tension and strong components.

Starting from the top of the array (which you can enlarge by clicking) and working down:

Leather punch for making holes in the hide.
Charcoal pencil for marking. Charcoal pencil does not clean off well. I use chalk now.
K-Y Jelly for lubrication. Not always necessary.
X-Acto knife. Very handy for all kinds of cutting.
Waterproof tape. I no longer use black.
Razor scrapper. Cuts much better than the X-Acto.
Needles. Heavy is good.
Clamps (red). These are for holding string taut when necessary.
Leather sewing tool. This is for threading string through leather. I use it only for punching small holes.
Synthetic sinew. Great stuff. Basically dental floss, but colored yellow.
Nylon or cotton string.

Fixing the Hide to the Rings

The rings can be prepared in many ways. When I made my first drum, I wrapped the rings with Teflon tape to make them slick and help prevent rust discoloring the calfskin. This was not enough to prevent rust stains. So, for the second one, I wrapped each ring twice. This also makes the rings slippery when you tighten the hide.

The next time, I used black insulting tape. This was a bad idea, because the black color showed through the hide. You can see what I mean in the step-by-step photos below. It prevented stains, though.

Since then, I have painted my rings with tan-colored rust-resistant paint.

You could coat the taped rings with K-Y jelly or other non-petroleum lubricant. That will make your rings really slick. This is not necesary for an okedo, but if you make a tsukeshime-daiko with these instructions, I would recommend it.

While doing this, you can soak the hides in the bathtub. Calfskin or horse only requires one-to-three hours to get soft. If you are making a tsukeshime-daiko, soak them up to six hours.

After the rings are wrapped and the hide is soft, it is time to but the hide on the rings. I used the nylon or cotton twine for this. You will thread the string through holes around the edge of the disk.

I have learned a good rule for the holes. Start with a number divisible by 4 , like 20 or 28 (but not 24), and add one. I had 21 holes (20 + 1), but I think a larger number like 29 would be better.

Mark the holes ¾" from edge for thin hide. Chalk or a soft charcoal pencil works well for marking on the damp hide. The holes themselves can be small—just a bit larger than the twine you will use to tighten the hide. Evenly punch the holes with the leather punch.

Begin with a knot in the end of the string to keep it from pulling through the hole in the head. Lace the holes in the following manner. Start with one hole we will label "1". Then thread the twine through every fifth hole. For my head with 21 holes: 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 5, 10, 15, 20, 4, 9, etc. So, in this photo at left, I have laced holes 1 and 6.

Continue around lacing the holes loosely. You will pull them tight later.

I usually go around four or five times. With a thin calf or horse skin, you only have to make it snug. It is also possible to tear the calfskin.

The hide is now held in place for the permanent stitching.

Stitching the Heads

It took about 20 hours for me to stitch the heads on my first drum. Only about 5-8 for my subsequent ones. I have simplified the stitch pattern since that first one. I'm glad I did the complicated stitch pattern for the first drum; it was good practice for when I finally make that first tsukeshime-daiko (shime). Below are two stitching diagrams.

Synthetic sinew is excellent for this task. It is very strong, and doesn't tend to tangle. If you can't find synthetic sinew, you can substitute dental floss, which is actually the same stuff, only white instead of cat-gut yellow. I found a good needle to use is a heavy sewing needle made for leatherworking. This widens the hole for the rest of the needle. The hole then closes on the string to hold it. Measure out about 1.5 times the circumference of the head.

You will want to mark out the holes for the tuning ropes first. I make these ropes rather large on my drum, about 9mm (3/8") diameter. I used a template, cut from tag board. The template is the same size as the entire drumhead. I decided on 12 holes (11 holes is also popular for an okedo this size). I have used 12 holes for all of my drums, from 1.3 shaku to 1.9 shaku. You need to mark out these holes so you know where the stitches will go.

There are two stitch lines, one that runs close to the drum shell, the other out near the steel rings. The inside line runs around the head uninterrupted, but the outside line runs between the tuning rope holes. You have to place this stitch line around each hole. I used a denser stitch for the outside line, about twice as many stitches for a given length. Make this sitich first. It holds the hide fast to the rings. The second stitch just creates a flat area between the outside of the head and the drum shell.

At left is my daibyôshi head. Click the small image to see a larger one for detail. In proportion to the shell, this head is much wider than the katsugi or ôkatsugi. There should be less space between the inner and outer stitches on these other two drums. A shime head should look like the daibyôshi's.

After you have completed the outside line, pull the entire string tight once again. Tie it off. Now you are ready for the comparatively easy task of doing the inner stitching. Once you have finished this inside line, you can cut the rope anchoring holes. I made mine 10mm (3/8") in diameter to allow for a variety of rope sizes. The holes cut cleaner if you wait until the hide is half-dry. A leather punch works best, but since I couldn't find one large enough, I used an X-Acto knife.

Attaching the Heads to the Shell

Before you attach the drumheads and start lacing the tuning rope, you must trim the extra hide on the inside of the heads. You want to leave a little hide on the shell side of the inner stitch line, maybe about 20mm (3/4").

After you have trimmed the excess hide and centered the shell on the head, bend back the hide between the inner-most stitch line and the shell. If you don't do this, the excess hide may lay flat and buzz against the drum shell.

Put the wet head on the end of your drum shell. The shell will act as a mold.

When the hide shrinks during drying, the edge will recede from the shell. Magic. You can continue to trim the folded up excess even more, until it looks smart.

Painting the Heads

Many okedo have the edges of their heads painted. The paint is usually lacquer and is applied on the head material between the playing surface and the edge, incorporating all of the stitching. Black is the most common color, but I've seen drums with just about all colors.

You can express your color sense with the shell, rope, and edging of an okedo. The combination you choose can make for a beautifully-colored instrument. I've seen everything, from understated and tasteful, to loud and garish.

I did not paint the heads on either of my drums, because I don't yet know how to get a steady, smooth line around the playing surface. When I find out, I may paint the edge on my second drum.

I included some shots of okedo below with different color schemes. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.