I found that a 40 grit sanding disc on a 4” angle grinder make a very good
tool for this! You have to be careful here because the grinder is a bit
aggressive but in the rough stages I like aggressive. Sand the ends flat and
then use the angle grinder to work more on the rough shaping of the shell. I
found that this combo works VERY well on the hard purpleheart and smoothes down
the facets of the joints quite nicely. Use very light pressure or it will chew
off more than you want it to!
As you can see the shell is now very round. The angle grinder made very quick
work of that task. As a matter of fact it does so well that I am going to skip
using the hand plane in the future as a step to round the shell. The hand plane
often digs too deeply and gouges the wood around odd grain patterns causing the
need for even more sanding… so an angle grinder is the tool for shaping of the
shell!
This picture shows how round I got it using that method. Notice the edge…
nice and smooth.
Now I cut a groove around the bottom of the shell to accommodate the ring
that the tensioning rods go through. Many folks make this ring of round stock. I
like flat stock for this. I think it makes a smoother profile and looks nicer.
The picture above shows the flat steel stock that I make this ring from. I set
my table saw blade to the same thickness as the steel so that it fits at the
correct depth like an inlay in the wood.
And then I set the rip fence to the width of the steel…
Then I begin cutting a groove by rotating the drum shell over the table saw
blade.
Here is the beginning of the groove… now I set the rip fence a little
closer and cut again.
Each time setting it a bit closer…
I continue doing this until I remove as much material as possible, and then
using a chisel, I smooth out the groove…
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