Ideas on how to fasten this together

A tapered joint would give you more glue surface. I believe that some drums are made that way.

You could also glue up a panel and cut it out as single piece.

You also cut small pieces and build it like stave drum. Make your staves long and then cut out a bunch of them as gifts.

Don't forget all those little slits.

Derby,

Those are some awesome drums! For me, the difference is few weeks worth of work on this type of project versus 30 minutes cutting and steaming a 1/2 inch thick piece of oak. I just hope my steam box is long enough; otherwise I'll have to make another.

GW,

I'm going to think of some kind of jig to make consistent, one-inch cuts. Shouldn't be too tough. I need to make about 10 of these little looms for a non-profit.

Thanks!

Scarf joint. If you ripped some long thin veneers (so the hoop thicknesss was three or four thicknesses) a big spiral, glued up and smoothed afterward, would also work. Hide glue is traditional, but polyurethane would hold well; with lots of surface area, stability while it dries is more important than strength.

Michael wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

That would probably work. If you could scare up some copper rivets and put a couple thru the lap it'd look very nice and you could forgo the glue.

John