The Beat Of A Different Drum Part 1

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. From websites and online stores, to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Well, Eric, this is not a painting. This is clearly a drum. So, what is it doing here? Well, Julian, um, I contacted you about this drum because it it looked like something that you had the skill set to handle. I got this drum off of Facebook community post and the person had said that this was sitting in the garbage, that somebody was going to be throwing it away. I'm a drummer. I like old stuff. I like history and it all just kind of immediately said to me, get it. So I hopped in the car and I was in the car before I even responded to the person I wanted. I was on the way. So I went and I picked it up and I did do a little bit of cleanup on it before it made it here. But the thing that really intrigued me was Roy B. Tisdell. Who is Roy B. Tisdell? Roy B. Tisdell was a World War I veteran and what is special about him is that he was a black man, but he was also an officer. In World War I and he was part of the Illinois 8th and which became the US Army 370th Regiment. These men were the only the only regiment that was led by black officers in World War I. And he was a second lieutenant when he went into World War I. He retired as a captain. But the thing about him that makes him stand apart is that he was a war hero. He went to France and fought and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. That would be the equivalent. I've heard it called the equivalent of the French Medal of Honor. It's given probably more frequently than the US Medal of Honor, but nonetheless it's a meritorious service award. And what he did is in October of 1918, he volunteered him and 20 men to do a reconnaissance mission and it was called the Bois de Mortier in France. And there were ensconced German machine gun positions in there and they volunteered to go in and root out these Germans in the machine guns. 20 men went, 18 were injured. Roy Tisdell came home with a silver plate in his head. He was injured. And the French, his his award, you know, they recognized the bravery and everything. So he got that award and and he was just a war hero, but it was it was a man, you know, the circumstances of the time just were extraordinary. He seems like quite an exceptional individual aside from achieving the rank of officer in World War I, which for a black man was probably incredibly difficult. But why is he on a drum? Unfortunately, Roy Tisdell died of sepsis in 1930. So he died, he was born in 1894. So he would 35, 36 or whatever. He was a pretty young guy. Yeah. The post 537 is the American Legion post and that was the black American Legion post in Peoria, Illinois. There was there was and still is a corresponding Legion post number two in Peoria, Illinois, which was for the white veterans. So when Roy passed, he they named the Legion post for him and this was their parade drum. And I've also found other newspaper clippings that they had American Legion band competition. Yeah, this marching band would go to various towns and they'd and they'd march and have competitions. Sure. And they were apparently pretty good. Oh, that's cool. From what I read in on the other pieces. And so they named the post after him. Well, let's talk about the drum. Eric, you want to give me a hand here and we're gonna flip it so that it's face up. Right. So Roy B. Tisdell is a pretty storied individual. This is a storied drum. It it's got some wear and tear approaching nearly a hundred years old. I mean we see all sorts of paint loss and you know, the veneer is splitting. The chrome is pitted. All of that kind of stuff is kind of what you'd expect with something this old. Right. But the skin of the drum is really where the damage is. It has just split right down the middle. That's a big problem for a drum and for an artifact. I actually am kind of out of my depth here in understanding this suite of materials. I know it's wood, it's parchment, all that kind of stuff, but maybe you can tell me a little bit about what makes this type of drum, this big drum, unique. The material of the head, it says here, it's a Slingerland Radio King genuine calf. Originally, I had considered it to be calf skin or to be leather. I went to many different drum restorers and was asking people, hey, can you can you fix this or do you have any ideas on this? And the drummer stores were not... They're into fixing the object. They don't necessarily deal with... They'd replace this. Yeah, they'd replace this with something. To make it a functional drum. With something new and that would be... And there are companies that make calf skin heads, but as I was talking to one of those fellows, he had said that he referred to this as vellum. And so vellum to me said paper. And when I said vellum paper, that's when I said maybe Julian can... It's a big leap, but I mean, I appreciate it. That's how I got across the street. So yes, this is a genuine calf skin head. So are most drums not genuine calf skin? No, now today they're plastic, mylar, and even drums that might be calf... to purport to be calf skin would be some type of synthetic. All right. So this is calf skin, but like explain to me how this drum goes together because I'm gonna have to take it apart and instead of just winging it, maybe you can kind of guide me. Tell me what I'm looking at and how this... Just how it works. So there are claws and tension rods that go all the way around. You know, the claws are pretty self-explanatory. The tension rods are right here, and that's what you would use to... We don't actually tune a drum. We tension a drum. Oh, okay. And the idea is to tension it evenly so that way that it's... Like this is like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Yeah, you don't want that. Okay. Yeah, you would do it in the same type of manner. So you have the claws, the tension rods, and then the bass drum hoop here. There was an inlay in the hoop that is missing most of the way around. Gotcha. And so this hoop compresses the the calf skin? Yes. It would pull down. Oh, I see. So it's just through friction that it's held taut. There's no... You know, no rivets or other mechanical fasteners. Okay. And on this particular head, the way the calf skin heads were were made, they were actually hand fitted around. There's another inner hoop in... So the calf skin is wrapped around the inner hoop, which this outer hoop holds down with tension. Gotcha. Okay. You mentioned that you thought I had this... You thought I had the skill set to handle this, which thank you for that trust, vote of confidence, or delusion. I'm not sure which one. What are you hoping we can do to this drum? I thought that it could be flattened and perhaps some type of inner leaf put behind it in order to just make the gap not so noticeable. So are you hoping that this can be played as a drum? No, no. It's a display object only. Gotcha. Okay. Well, that's good to hear because I was gonna have to deliver you some really bad news. Otherwise, I presume you're not looking for a new state to try to preserve some of the wear and the age on this, but just kind of stopping its deterioration? Yeah, the stopping of the deterioration. I think the condition overall, the patina of the drum tells tells the story. Yeah. Tells some story of history and it wouldn't be perfect. Yeah, so we'd be looking more for conservation and less for restoration. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good. That starts to help me figure out what path is gonna lead to success. Okay, so now I know who Roy B. Tisdale was, but that's not the end of the story, right? It gets much more interesting. What happened was in 1947, in April, there was a singer. He was another, again, another black man. His name was Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson is not just any singer. Paul Robeson was a very famous singer. Very famous singer in the 30s and 40s and even beyond. He played at Carnegie Hall. So Paul Robeson was scheduled to play a concert in Peoria, Illinois. That's really cool. And he was outspoken. He was. He was very outspoken. He wanted equal rights. He was outspoken about that. He was anti-fascist. He was pro-union. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, people like Paul Robeson were on the bleeding edge of demanding what would become the Civil Rights Movement. Often in the face of extreme resistance. Yes, and that resistance includes the FBI. So Paul Robeson, of course, it was under a massive FBI investigation. In April, I believe it was also April of 1947, he was brought up by the House Un-American Activities Committee. There were letters written to, if you go into his FBI file, there is correspondence about the Tisdale Post, about Paul Robeson, about this performance, and they are signed and sent between J. Edgar Hoover. And what happened is that the city of Peoria, the mayor, the city council, they were called alderman awards at the time, the police were all against Robeson's singing because he was considered a communist. So how the post became involved? The post commander was named Clifford Hazelwood. So he was giving voice of support, him and there were other unionists in Peoria that gave support to Paul Robeson. But that caused him, caused Clifford very much personal pain. Yeah, some unwanted attention. Unwanted attention. He actually wrote to J. Edgar Hoover and demanded that if you think I'm a communist, and he was a World War I veteran also, he said if you think I'm a communist, investigate me. Wow. Come check me out, look at me, tell me if I'm a communist. I mean think of the the Yiddish word the chutzpah to do that, to write to Hoover and say I'm drawing a line in the sand, you know, that's remarkable. The post via Hazelwood got dragged into this communist situation and the American Legion itself did an investigation into the post of 537 and determined that the Roy B. Tisdale post 537 was infiltrated with communists. And they seized the property and locked the doors in August of 1947. And the post was re-chartered the following year, but all the people, everybody that was involved with this was was gone. This drum, this guy, this, there is a lot wrapped up in this. I mean if you were an American history buff, this is kind of, kind of checks all of the boxes. You've got a war hero, you've got political controversy, you've got an artifact. This is everything. So you saved this from the trash heap. We're going to conserve this. What's the future hold for this drum? Well, I want to display it. And I have been in contact with the Peoria Historical Society Springdale Cemetery, which is a large historic cemetery in Peoria, Illinois also. And they are doing an exhibit on Southtown. So the area of Peoria where this post was located, they're doing an exhibition on that area and the things that used to be there. And one of the things that they want to want to exhibit is things about the Tisdale Post and this seems to be like the the cherry on top. You couldn't ask for anything better, right? I mean aside from being just visually really seductive and wonderful to look at, the history that's contained within this this drum is really remarkable. So that's where it's hopefully going, is to an exhibition at least for some time. Yeah, I'd like to have it at that exhibition and then and I'll let it be known to people that this is out there and I do want to continue to share the story. So that's why I'm very grateful to be here as well. Well, it's a long story. It starts in World War I and continues on and I'm honored that we get to be part of the next chapter of this story. So thank you for trusting me. Thank you for the challenge. I might not thank you later on, but I think it'll be an interesting project and I don't take working on things lightly when they have this level of history. There's a weight that I will carry with me as I'm working on this piece. But I'm honored to have that opportunity. So thank you and let's see what we can do. Thank you. There is a certain excitement in taking on a new and unknown challenge. It reminds me to the early days of working with my father, when everything was new and he was throwing challenges at me left and right. Things like building our first website. And back then I was completely on my own, unlike you with Squarespace. With Squarespace's new design intelligence software, you can build a beautiful mobile-friendly and modern website just by dragging and dropping elements around the page. So what you see is what you get. No coding necessary. And by utilizing Squarespace's new AI engine, you can take some of the drudgery out of adding copy to your website. Letting the AI enhance it, edit it, make it more clear, or just give it a little bit of personality. And Squarespace's support doesn't just stop on the design end. With robust forums, tutorials, videos, and articles, anything and everything you could ever ask has already been answered. So head over to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash Baumgartner to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Though not a painting, this project begins just like every painting that comes into the studio, with a bit of disassembly. Because in order to repair all of the damage, I have to break the piece, the drum in this case, down into its respective parts. Now I am not a drummer, and I don't play any musical instruments, so I am way out of my league here, but that's okay. I'm going to jump into this with the same confidence that I do any project, and a little bit of ignorance for what's to come. Sometimes when tackling new things, it's okay to be a little blind to the problems that you're going to face, because if you knew how challenging it was going to be, you might not tackle the project. And that would be unfortunate, not only for the project, but for you. Because embarking upon new things, even if they're challenging and difficult and uncomfortable, is how we grow. And one of the tenets of this studio is that we are always trying to push ourselves forward, trying to challenge ourselves with new projects and new techniques, and so this drum fits right in. Now, once I have taken the skin off, I can see just how poorly this drum has been treated in the past. There is old glue in here, there are multiple screws holding it together, and all of this needs to come off. But before I can do that, I have to disassemble the drum further. All of the hardware needs to come off, and wow, look at that. That's going to be an interesting question later on, but for now, I'm going to focus on the structure of the drum and remove all of this hardware. Now, Eric said he had cleaned some of this hardware, and I'm not sure if he had replaced some of the original hardware with this new hardware, but we're going to see if we can do better. Now, looking at the drum, we can see the veneer has split, and this is probably because of an impact or maybe some water exposure. All of the hardware will go into a little container, and I'll save that for later. We don't want to lose any of this stuff because it's hard to find and, well, it's original. I'm using a little blade here to try to cut this adhesive, but upon tackling it, I noticed that it's really, really gooey and kind of rubbery, so I don't think that this is the right approach. Instead, I'm going to turn to a heat gun to see if that will soften up this adhesive a little bit. Sometimes that works, sometimes not, but it's worth trying. So starting on a very low setting, I'll expose the adhesive to a little bit of heat and then see if it does come off, and lo and behold, it does. It turns out that this glue is hot melt glue. Yeah, somebody squirted a whole bunch of hot glue into this gap to try to fix it. I mean, clearly, whoever worked on this didn't have any business trying to repair this drum, and all of the repairs have been problematic. So we're going to have to undo all of them and then figure out a way to redo them in a more respective and proper manner. So once I have this hoop removed, I can repair it. But before that, I have to tackle some of the splitting veneer. Now, this drum is composed of a plywood, and plywood is just multiple layers of thin wood laminated cross grain. And the outer layers are usually the show layers or the veneer layers. Here, in this case, the veneer has split. So I'm using some hide glue on the back of the veneer and on the plywood, and then I'll use some tape just to hold it in place. I'll continue doing this throughout the rest of the piece, making sure that this veneer is put back down in its place. This isn't structural, it's cosmetic, and to some degree, being on the inside of the drum, it's not terribly important. Nobody's ever really going to see this, but we have it here in the studio and we can affect these changes, these repairs, so why not? Now, I'm not concerned if the adhesive spills over. I'm making a pretty big mess here. Because this is hide glue, it is reversible. I can use a little bit of warm water or warm water and vinegar and I can remove the excess. So keeping it clean right now, I will try to do that, but that's not the focus. On these curved sections, I have to create some interesting vector clamping. So I use some thin strips of wood, about an eighth of an inch, and then multiple cauls across them, and this mimics the curvature of the drum while putting adequate pressure on the veneer so that it dries in place. This isn't terribly complex and woodworkers and furniture conservators do this all the time, but for me as a painting conservator, this is kind of neat and I'm pretty proud of myself. Once the glue has dried about a day or two or three, I can't remember later, I can remove all of the clamps and all of the cauls and I can see if it worked and I hope it worked. Spoiler, it worked. Yes, there's a mess, but I'll clean that off later on. So I'll continue going on applying some more hide glue on the area where the hoop was. I'll apply the glue onto the hoop and then I'll fit the hoop into the drum and then the clamping fun begins. I'm using a lot of spring clamps here and then some regular clamps and the joint to hold this all together. This is one of those cases where you can never have too many clamps. And a few days later, once the glue is dry, I can remove all of those clamps that I've applied. And you can see there's no separation, no spring back, everything dried in its place and how it should. And now the drum is much more stable and secure. But there is still more veneer repair to be done. So using a syringe, I will inject more hide glue into, on, around, underneath, all over where the veneer has split to make sure that I've got really really good glue saturation so that we get really good adhesion and we don't have any starved joints. Again, I'm going to use some cauls to clamp this after cleaning up a little bit and I'll use a piece of siliconized mylar so that all of these cauls don't stick. The last thing I want to do is glue all of this wood to the face of the drum and then have to fix that later on. Injecting the adhesive is really critical in some of these areas where I wouldn't be able to get a brush otherwise. Again, more cauls, more clamps, and more waiting. With the drum all structurally sound, I can now start to clean it. And this is one of those interesting moments. We want to clean the drum of the accumulated grime, the dust, the dirt, the oils, all that kind of stuff that's on it. But we don't want to strip this drum down. So what I'm going to be doing here is just a surface cleaning using the neutral organic soap that I mix in the studio that I often use on paintings. And this will remove and break down the oils, the dirts, the dust, the accumulated particulate, all the gunk that's sitting on the surface. It just takes an application, a little bit of agitation, and then I can wipe all of this off. Now what I'm not looking to do here is strip this down. I mentioned that once before. I'm going to keep mentioning it. We're going to be preserving the patina on this drum. And I know that that's a dirty word here in the studio. Because patina on paintings is not a thing. It's just grime and dust and dirt. But objects are different. Historical artifacts are different than fine art. Fine art, we want to honor the artist's work, their unique vision, their creation, their narrative. And all of the wear and tear and age that ends up on a piece of fine art goes against that artist's unique vision. So we want to repair that. But on an artifact where the age and wear is part of the story, it's critical to the life that the artifact has lived. We want to preserve that. So the cleaning will really just be superficial. Now once I've applied that neutral organic soap, I'm going to remove it with a very very mild solvent just to make sure that there's no residue. Here again, I'm not trying to strip off this finish. Eric and I talked about this and we decided that to strip off this finish and refinish it would effectively be making a new drum and stripping this piece of its history. This is the finish that was used by the drummers who use this drum throughout its life. That's the story it tells. That's its life. And taking it off to make it look shiny and new, well, it may look good, but it won't be the same drum. One thing I am going to remove is the residue of the duct tape because that was the residue of an old repair. And it shouldn't be there. We don't want this grime here. But I'm being careful to not strip off any of the finish. So I'm letting my blade glide across the surface here, just scraping off this old duct tape. And duct tape is one of those really wonderful and terrible materials. It's wonderful when you're in a pinch and you need to, I don't know, tape something together like your younger brother or your car window or something, but it's a horrible material because when it's fresh and young, the adhesive is really gooey and hard to get off. And then when it gets old, the adhesive dries and it's hard to get off. And it's not an archival product. And so it has no business on paintings or historical artifacts. Really, duct tape should be used for little brothers and car windows, I guess. So once I've gotten all the tape off, I'll remove any residues with a mild solvent. And then we can start turning our attention to the skin. And just like the drum, it begins by removing duct tape residue. There are multiple tape residues here and some of them are very old, like in this case, where I can use my scalpel and scrape it off dry, but not all of them are. The skin is both very, very strong and also really, really delicate. It's really interesting. It's just like our skin. So I have to be careful because if I catch the skin, it will simply slice. But if I glide across the surface with a sharp blade, the skin is relatively sturdy and durable, particularly in its dry state. So I can just remove that adhesive. Now, I'll come and remove some of this other adhesive with a solvent. Now, skin is also interesting because it is relatively solvent resistant. These solvents don't do anything to the skin, even though it absorbs them, they evaporate, but it is very receptive to water. So luckily, none of this adhesive is water-based because if it was, we'd have some pretty big problems. But I'll get to that later on. There is a lot of scraping that has to happen here. Lots of old adhesive residues. And I mentioned that duct tape adhesive is really interesting because it's both dry and gooey. Well, I removed the dry stuff, but the gooey stuff, the fresh adhesive, doesn't come off with a scalpel. It's too gooey. So I have to use a solvent gel. Once that solvent gel has been allowed to sit for a little bit and break down that adhesive, then I can come with my scalpel and lift off all of that residue. Again, the skin is really, really strong. And so this solvent gel doesn't harm it, doesn't damage it. And I'm really lucky for that because otherwise, I'm not sure how I would remove all of this gooey, gunky duct tape adhesive residue. And it's really an awful material. With all of the adhesive now removed, I can begin on the next step in repairing the skin. And that's 3D printing, which sounds strange, but it will make sense when you see it. After printing all of these small plastic bits, my printer is only so large and I don't need a massive one yet, I'll begin to assemble them with a plastic cement. And this is going to make a permanent bond, effectively melting the plastic to itself. This is just PLA, which is basic plastic. I don't need a more exotic filament right now, even though I have them. I'm just looking to make this big hoop. And you might ask why I'm making this hoop, if you know already. Shh, don't say. It's a surprise. I'm making a hula hoop because we're about to party in the studio. Actually, I'm making a big hoop with a contour that matches that of the skin. You see, when a skin is put on its retaining hoop, it's formed. It's not just completely flat and there's this little ridge or lip. And I need to support that for the next process. So I've assembled all but the last joint and I'm making sure that it fits perfectly. I've printed a bunch of small little fillers just to make sure that I get it perfect. I want this support, this plastic ring, my hula hoop, to line up and fit the skin perfectly. If there's any gap, it could end up distorting the skin and I don't want that. So I'll add two of these little fillers, glue it into place, and then the hoop construction will be complete. Now the reason for this hoop construction is that I have to flatten this skin. It's all crinkled and wavy and wonky and that's just not going to cut it. And I mentioned that the skin is receptive to water. So by wetting it a lot, in fact soaking it, I can make this skin pliable. It takes a lot of water and a lot of massaging. And eventually this skin does become soft and that's exactly what I want because now it's in a state where I can manipulate it. And there were a lot of different approaches that I found to manipulating skins. One of the big issues is that once you introduce water, you are now racing against the clock and the skin is going to want to shrink. So you now have two problems, time and shrinkage. The skin is pliable, but it's going to change. So I'm taking it over to the hot table and I'm using a blotter paper and I'm going to wrap it in this cotton webbing just like I would with a painting that will allow me to remove all of the air in the chamber or bag that I create with the plastic that goes on top. Effectively treating this just like a painting when I do a vapor treatment on the hot table. But here the hoop is critically important. I'll lay it down and then I'll put the skin in place and this is going to hold this skin in its shape. It's going to make sure that the hoop doesn't collapse under the weight of the vacuum pressure. Now instead of using the standard PET film that I use, I'm using a flexible one because this is a three-dimensional object. I need this to conform and this is similar to what you might use in fiberglass or carbon fiber vacuum bag forming. This is a high temperature flexible plastic film so it's going to resist the heat of the vacuum table, but still conform to the shape of the object. So I'll put the vacuum through bag connectors in all four corners. I'll turn the vacuum pump on and then I'll start extracting the air and I've turned the pump on at a very low extraction rate. I want time because I'm trying to manipulate this skin flat and into position. My vacuum pump can extract this air very very quickly and sometimes I'll do that but here I want a little bit more time so that I have a little wiggle room. And you can see just how well it conforms. This flexible plastic film is really great for this purpose. And here you can see how that 3D printed hula hoop is supporting the wood hoop to which the skin is wrapped. The wood hoop is standing proud but that curvature is being maintained by that plastic hula hoop. If I didn't have that hula hoop there this would all get crushed by the weight of the vacuum pressure and that would effectively destroy it. I'm coming along with my wood brayer and just applying some pressure onto this. There is plenty of pressure with the vacuum pump, but I don't know belt and suspenders feels like a pretty good approach here. And as we can see it's pretty flat. In fact, it's really flat and this is great. So the introduction of water has been really good here. It's allowed the skin to become pliable and the vacuum pressure is now holding it flat. The blotter paper is extracting that moisture and it looks like this was pretty successful. A few hours later, I'll come back and start disassembling this construction here. Vacuum pump has been turned off. The table has been allowed to cool. I can remove these thru-back connectors, peel off this plastic film and take a look and see how this has responded. It's looking great. I'm really really satisfied with how this worked. Now I'm going to separate it from the paper and it's a little bit stuck. That's okay. Nothing transferred. There's no loss of paint or anything. It's just the skin sticking to the paper. But it's still damp. Unfortunately, this blotter didn't suck out all of that moisture. And so I have a dampened piece of skin that, well, if I just leave it, it's going to go right back to crinkling. So I need to press it. And instead of pressing it under the vacuum pump again, I'm going to use just some weights. So I've cut a piece of blotter in a circle to go inside. I've added more blotter papers to the bottom. I've cut some wood to fit the radius of this circle. Now I'm adding more wood to distribute pressure evenly across the wood that I just put in, the circular wood. And then I'm taking some good old-fashioned weights. In this case, just some cinder blocks or CMUs, concrete masonry units as they are technically called. And I'm just going to lay them on top. And that's it. And hope that that does the job.