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Making your own drum sticks

Started by xdrummer2000, July 29, 2008, 03:36 PM

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xdrummer2000

I got a wood lathe recently and I decided I should make my own sticks. A pair of sticks usually costs about $7 or so, but two pieces of wood that could be turned into sticks on a lathe just cost a dollar or two at most (and I'm sure only endangered or hard-to-find exotic woods would cost that much for two stick-sized turning blanks).

I'm hoping to try these woods out for making sticks:

Purpleheart
Ebony
Cocobolo
Lignum Vitae (possibly--this type of wood is the hardest in the world, so I don't know if I'd want to risk breaking a bunch of heads and cymbals)

How many of you guys make your own sticks or have done so before?

Dave Heim

Good luck - sounds like a fun project!

I suppose if I had the equipment, I could see me giving it a shot just to say I did it.  But from a practical perspective I just don't have the time, the need, the desire, or the skill to deal with it.   So I prefer to just buy my sticks.

It's a little like Norm Abrams' "New Yankee Workshop" show on PBS.  The guy uses $250,000 worth of woodworking equipment to make things you can buy already made - in most cases for just a few hundred dollars.  :)

xdrummer2000

Quote from: Dave Heim on July 29, 2008, 08:14 PM
Good luck - sounds like a fun project!

I suppose if I had the equipment, I could see me giving it a shot just to say I did it.  But from a practical perspective I just don't have the time, the need, the desire, or the skill to deal with it.   So I prefer to just buy my sticks.

It's a little like Norm Abrams' "New Yankee Workshop" show on PBS.  The guy uses $250,000 worth of woodworking equipment to make things you can buy already made - in most cases for just a few hundred dollars.  :)

I love that show. I watch it every week on Fridays and Saturdays on DIY Network. And yeah...his equipment must be dozens of thousands of dollars (particularly that wide belt sander he has...those things go for over $20,000 most of the time!).  :o


heavyhitter

i agree with dave, for what they cost , save some money and buy a whole brick of sticks like i do, plus your a drummer, why take a chance with your hands around those machines.

xdrummer2000

Quote from: heavyhitter on August 04, 2008, 09:19 PM
why take a chance with your hands around those machines.

I have tons of passion for woodworking, so I'm willing to take the chance. As long as you know what you're doing, it's fine. Still, I always keep my hands as far away from spinning blades and bits as I can, though.

And BTW, making sticks was just an idea of mine. It's not like I'm going to boycott buying Vic Firths or Vaters and start making ALL of my sticks myself. Heck, some of the sticks I make in the future may just become decorations if they're made out of a really expensive wood. :)

inferus

I think that custom making your own sticks is a great idea to experiment with what you truely want in a drum stick. Personally i use buddy rich vic virth sticks because i find them to be long lasting and they are matched to weight but if i had a wood lathe i would most definatly try this. altho it must take a long time to get the stick the way you want it, you will get it the way you want it. not branded without anyone's name on it; maybe even your own name on it.

i fully support this and i think that it will turn a greater result once you get the hang of it and you can custom your drumsticks to your needs

playinpearls

i'd like to just to save some money, after the initial investment of course...


I'd end up just making a bunch of VF 5a's anyway, lol ::)

Danno

I used to make my own sticks out of hardwood dowels. If you can find dowels in the diameter you want all you'd have to do is lathe the ends.

Roger Beverage

You may fnd yourself making many, many, sticks before you get a pair that match well. 

However, I do have some chunks of old mahogany that I plan to make some sticks from, if only for display with some of my rope tension drum collection.

Roger

MOUSE

My first ever pair of sticks were made out of a local native hardwood. No idea what, but an old guy in the pipe band whittled them up for me with a pocket knife ( there were no shops handy in the district, and they only stocked knitting needle dance band sticks back then, rock drummers were using the butt end of these to play).
Well i used these to learn with and played with them for many years until the new fangled pipe corp style fat sticks came along when world drumming champion Alex Duthart toured the world.
Those old sticks never even looked like wearing out, were great to play with, nicely balanced, quite unique. Somewhere in a house shift i lost em  :( The closest thing i have ever found to them are the Mike Manginini model.