home
Kirk playing drums 04.jpg

BassDrumOttoman

Bass Drum Ottoman

I bought these drum shells to do some sort of project with, maybe make furniture or an art project or something. My wife and I were re-working our living room and basement and she wanted an ottoman to go along with a new couch that we bought. She suggested a bass drum ottoman and I was all for it. I purchased the shells used for $30. They didn't have any hardware, just the wrap.

Drum shells before working on them. Shells 01.jpg I used a table saw to cut bass drum to make it shorter. Measuring was interesting. We sat on the couch and found something that was the height that we liked, then we measured the height of all of the parts except for the drum itself. We measured a round bottom board, round top board, and foam cushion. Then we subtracted the combined number of the materials from the height of that we wanted to get the height that the drum needed to be. I set the guard on the table saw and sort of rolled the drum around as it was being cut. I was concerned about the cut because I had never cut anything round like that before but it was very easy and problem free. Shells 02.jpg I used a heat gun (i.e. hair dryer) to heat the wrap where the seem was to loosen the glue that was holding the wrap on. Shells 03.jpg Ever wonder what the wrap looks like? Me too. Now you know. Shells 04.jpg This drum set had glue holding the wrap on to the wood at the seem and where it was on top of the wrap after it went around the drum. Shells 05.jpg Here the wrap is mostly off of the drum. I used a putty knife to get under the seem enough to pull it off by hand. Shells 06.jpg You can see the residue from the glue. Shells 07.jpg I tried a few techniques to get the glue residue off but ultimately used a belt sander to get it off and smooth out the rest of the outside of the shell. Shells 08.jpg Dark Walnut stain was used on the outside of the shell and on the round bottom board. This was a 22 inch bass drum (which means it's 22 inches across the drum, not the height of the drum) and a 24 inch round board that I picked up from a local hardware store (1 for the top and 1 for the bottom, I only stained the bottom one). Shells 09.jpg My wife purchased fabric and a 24 inch (by about 4 inches tall) piece of round foam, and we used a staple gun to hold the fabric in place. We turned the fabric over stapled it in about 4 trips around the circle. Shells 10.jpg We were very happy with the top. We didn't even have to make adjustments after putting any of the staples in. Shells 11.jpg A second coat of stain was added to the drum and bottom board. Shells 12.jpg I put 1 1/4 inch torx screws through the center of 1 inch rubber stoppers (the rubber stoppers had a hole in the center) in 4 places on the board to hold the drum in place on the bottom board. This way we could easily take the ottoman apart if needed but the drum wouldn't slide around when you put your feet on it. You can't see it here, but I ended up staining the inside of the drum because some of the stain came through the holes for the floor tom brackets. I should've used painters tape to cover the holes from the inside. Shells 13.jpg The same rubber stoppers were secured to the bottom of the top board. Shells 14.jpg Here's what the bottom board looks like without the bass drum shell on it. Shells 15.jpg Here's a closeup of a rubber stopper. Shells 16.jpg Finally, the finished product. I decided not to add polyurethane to this but may still consider it in the future. If so, I would probably use satin. Shells 17.jpg

blogs