text: Pre-stretch you skin! This is the point in the process where you want to “pre-stretch” your skin a bit. Take the skin and wring or knead it. Oftentimes in Africa drum makers will walk on it with their feet, and we’ve seen some drum makers put it in a washing machine to achieve this result. If you think about it, the skin has been dry and crispy and you are basically re-training it to move and to expand and contract again.
  A side benefit to pre-stretching is that if you have any thin or weak spots or bug bites, they will open up or tear at this point. Don’t fret, you can choose to mount the skin so those spots are not on the actual playing surface, or if it’s in the middle of the skin you’ll see it at this point in the process and save yourself hours of work. This crucial step is often overlooked, and is the chief reason why skins split in the final tuning during a re-head. Done properly, pre-stretching can also help keep the drum in tune later on, as you’ve already taken the slack out of the skin so it stays at maximum tension with little stretch.
  Decide which side of the shell you want to be front facing and lay your skin over the bearing edge (top) with the spine running down the center and the hair (if using hairy skin) pointing toward the front facing side of the shell. You want the spine running down the center of the drum because in theory the thickness of the skin will then be the most even where your hands will be playing the drum, which allows for the most consistent tones between your left and right hands.
  Place your wrapped top ring (flesh hoop) over the skin and fold the portion of the skin outside of the ring inward around the ring so that it bunches up in the center. While keeping the skin bunched, grab the ring with your top loops and pull it up and over the skin so that it lines up with the ring that is now wrapped in the skin (flesh hoop). Once you've got it looking centered and even flip everything upside down to finish threading the main vertical rope.
  With your drum upside down, finish threading your main vertical rope. Choose an end (usually the shorter end) to become your anchor loop and thread until you've met the longer end that will become your tail (a.k.a. diamond rope).
  There are several ways of making your anchor loop, but we prefer this way because it gives you lots of flexibility if you need to work on the rope later on. Tie the knot seen in the video, put the other end of your vertical through the loop created by the knot, and pull it just tight enough to stay in place. Until you pull the excess slack out of your skin you will need the rope to be loose, so don't tighten anything yet!