Starting the Heads

Now comes the exciting part! The heads are what make it a drum, after all. I had a local metal working shop make my rings for me. They were great and I'm sure I'll work with them again. I purchased enough rings for five drums, but I'm only working on the first three right now.
These heads are made out of goat skin. I wrapped the rings in plumbers thread tape to keep it from rusting and/or staining the hide of the head. It was white (as you can see in the first photo) so it won't form a dark ring around the outside of the head. Not a problem for lacquered heads, but I'm going to leave these 'naked'.

I used nylon string to gradually pull the edges of the hide circle around the ring, then tied it off. Throughout this process I poured water onto the skin and massaged it in to keep it from drying out.

When the head was stretched the way I wanted it I flipped it over and drew a dotted line with chalk on the drum head to give me a stitching guide. I had marked out my rope holes on a paper template prior to starting and I laid it over the head to mark out where the holes would go (not shown) so I could stitch around them.