Tucking & Stretching Conga & Bongo Skins

Steps for Conga and Bongo Head Tucking & Stretching

Remove old head from drum.  (Observe & examine how the parts fits together.)

You will need the to keep the metal wire, which your current head is tucked around. 

Soak new skin in tub, sink or big bucket of warm water.  Soak until the entire skin is flexible.  (Untreated skins usually get fully flexible in 10 - 25 minuets.  Treated skins take longer, sometimes up to 60 minuets or more.) 

Remove skin from water & pat dry.  The skin should be flexible but not dripping wet.

Lay moist skin on top of drum.

Place wire ring on top of skin.

Lift edges of the skin to wrap the skin around wire.

Put rim on top of skin & wire, tuck the skin through rim.  (The wire will not directly touch the rim because the skin is between the wire and rim, but the wire should fit inside the rim.)

Attach lugs to the rim; do NOT make lugs tight yet. 

Let dry (The head will tighten and harden as it dries, which is why you don't want the lugs to be tight yet.)

Cut away excess skin.  The skin is most difficult to cut when it is fully dry.  So after it dries you can either moisten the excess skin again to make it is easier to cut; or you can cut excess skin before it is full dry.  Be careful not to cut away too much.

And after it dries adjust lugs to your desired tuning & have fun!

Notes and Tips

Tucking the skin under the rim is the most challenging part of the job.  Take your time and be careful to bring the skin through the rim evenly and smoothly.  It is normal for folds to appear around the edge of the drum, but the more you can smooth out the folds the better the re-heading will be.

Tip: Sometimes flat-headed pliers can be helpful to pull the skin through, but if there is a couple of inches or more of extra skin, then one's fingers are usually sufficient to pull and tuck the skin.

Tip: Do NOT cut the skin until your are satisfied.  You can always redo the whole process if you don't cut your skin.  But once it's cut it will be very difficult to re-tuck the same size skin.  

Use care and a quality scissor when you are ready to cut the excess skin.

After the head dries you can tighten the lugs and tune it as you like.

Tip: For bongo lugs (9" or smaller heads): tighten all the lugs moving in a circular, clockwise or counterclockwise, direction. 

Tip: For congas some players prefer to tighten the lugs in a circular direction, but I prefer to tighten in a star pattern, which enables me to stretch the skin evenly across the drum.

How long does the head take to dry?  It often takes 2 - 4 hours for a head to fully dry, but it could take more or less depending on the size and thickness of the skin as well as how moist or wet the skin was when first tucked. 

Tip: In the beginning of the process, before you loosen the lugs and take the rim off examine it; examine how the rim sits on top of the skin and how the lugs pull the rim down and so on.  As you dismantle your old head take a good look at how everything relates and fits together.