Todays Project - What did you do today?

[Hawkeye]

This is about the closest I've come to shop work in the last five months, other than getting the wiring in my house almost done. My big Ashiko (drum) had the head split in two by the heat when my house caught fire.
   

The new skin finally arrived this week, so today was skinning day. The skin needed to be soaked for up to 8 hours. Since it was 26" in diameter, I didn't have a tub big enough to lay it out. A very large garbage bag in the bottom of the shower does the job well.
   

Here's the drum with the two steel rings waiting for the skin. The wooden rim is liberally rubbed with beeswax to prevent the hide from sticking.
   
(Unfortunately, having the photo rotated correctly in your hard drive doesn't result in having it correct in this new software.)

It's amazing how fast you can get the skin wrapped around the flesh ring and tucked under the clamping ring. All the wrinkles pull out easily, since the rawhide is quite slippery when hydrated.
   

The excess is then trimmed off. I use a piece of aluminum as a guard, since a nick will ruin a $100 skin.
   

The finished head. Now all that remains is to let it dry slowly for a bunch of days, then tune it up.