FAQs

Q. How many plies are your drum shells?

A. One ply. These are stave drums. And these are all solid pieces of wood glued together. Radius Drums are not plywood. They are solid pieces of wood glued together and I round out the shell with routers and jigs that I’ve made here in the shop.

Q. Do you build all these drum shells by yourself?

A. Yes, I do. From buying the boards, cutting, layout, all the way up to full assembly and shipping. Every step in the process is me. Every now and then my son will come in and help me tune if I’ve got a big batch going but yeah, it’s just me out here.

Q. Do you build full drum sets?

A.  Yes, I can. But, I focus on snares because it’s manageable. 

Q. Do you turn your drums on a lathe?

A. No. I have a router setup to do the outside and then I have a different setup to round the inside. I did recently get a lathe but, I am only using it to speed up  the sanding process for now.

Q. How did I get into drum building? 

A. I started building guitars back in high school. I built a guitar for myself, I’ve built several guitars and basses for friends. But I’ve never really been that great of a guitar player. So one day I thought to myself, “I’m a drummer, I should figure out if I can build drums!’ And I figured it out and I haven’t stopped.

Q. Do you offer endorsements? 

A. The short answer is “No.”   I’m a one man show, building one drum at a time. If you want a Radius Drums Snare, you’ll be paying full price. I’m sorry. But no, no endorsement deals. 

Q. Do you offer metal shells?

A. Until recently I would’ve said definitely not but, I’ve had this aluminum laying around for quite a while and my friend just opened his own fabrication shop and he’s got a roller and a welder and he’s got all the good stuff for doing metal.

So I’m like, “I’ve got this aluminum, can I bring it over and roll it up and turn it into a drum?’ And that’s what we did. If the demand is there, you could start seeing more aluminum radius drums.

Q. What makes you different from other builders?

A. I struggled with this for a long time, actually. Somebody asked me this the first year I put myself out there. “what sets you apart from other state builders? Why should I buy from you?” And I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to tell him. But I’ve, I think I’ve found my way to differentiate…

You’re going to see a lot more wood burned and laser engraved drums coming out of the Radius Drums shop. From now on it’s going to start becoming a key element in most of my snares.