Gon bops oak requinto - Restoration for Yaya Maldonado - 70's

So, i feel blessed that Yaya Maldonado, one serious heavy player, asked me to work on his main quinto ax.

This 70's requinto has a seriously thick skin on it. It had two significant cracks in the middle of the drum, splitting the inlayed wooden band. And several other cracks on the bottom, including one nasty cross stave diagonal crack that did not look good, structurally.

They all came together nicely, despite the extra tension needed to bring these specific drums back together... something about the inlayed band makes it hard to close cracks on this model of gon bops.

Gave it back to Yaya last weekend at La Pena. He called to thank me and is very happy with the repairs. Nice to hear...

Im going to ask him to string up a chekere for me.. (in the back ground about 5' back) one fat and huge gourd i picked up a few years back... It looks perfect for what im looking for...

My 12yr old dropped it and cracked the bell, but its fixable. I may put some fiberglass inside the bell to make sure its solid.

Ill post pics when its strung up.. so you can see Yaya's find work...

Tony