The making of cajon drum - DIY woodworking India

The making of cajon drum(fixing laminate) - DIY woodworking India

Hey everyone. Welcome to DIY woodworking India.

I have fixed laminates on both the sides of the drum. I have kept it for a couple of hours without disturbing it so that laminates fit properly on the underlying cajon structure. For first part of the cajon making, please visit my post The making of cajon drum - DIY woodworking India. I have described about the structure, plan and the final product there.

In this part, I will touch upon the steps which I have not mentioned in that post such as fixing the laminates, giving it the final touch etc.

Laminate cutters are available in local hardware shops. The one I have is shown below:

Mark the line on the laminate you want to cut, place a ruler along with it and then draw the line with the cutter along the line. You have to draw the same line or mark couple of times until the laminate piece can be removed with a gentle pull.

Once pieces are ready, apply wood adhesive on the back of those and on the cajon body. Basically, we need to apply adhesives on both the surfaces which will join.

Once you have applied adhesive, put the laminates pieces gently on the cajon body. Be careful of putting it accurately on the surface so that you don't need to remove and put it again. For laminates bigger in size for example, 4'x8', we keep 4-5 sticks on the surface and then fix the laminate over it so that we can adjust the position of the laminate. Now, we have to put tape so that the laminate is fixed properly in the edges. This tape is known as masking tape. After it is fixed, keep the cajon unit at rest for a few hours till the adhesives dry. It will be be written on adhesive usage instruction how long you should wait for it to dry.

Here is a demo of my cajon drum.