- Thu Aug 31, 2017 5:42 pm
#38225
I bought my djembe used years ago, and never replaced the skin. Needless to say, it was much in need of a cleaning.
To clean the skin on my djembe without using water, I used orange-oil household cleaner*, and it worked perfectly, with no damage to the skin. Removed the grime and oil, left it much cleaner and sounding better. (a little bit clearer, crisper, rings more vibrantly, less dull and "gummy" sounding)
*:Brand name of the cleaner here in USA is Citrasolv, but probably varies by country.
It's made of food-grade Limonene (from orange peels) and Orange Oil, with nothing else. (all essential oil so it evaporates entirely - beware other products which are not purely essential oil)
It was an experiment, so at first I was cautious, using only a drop or two at a time, but eventually I gained confidence, and was wiping the surface with it freely. I used paper towels to rub the surface, and a spare toothbrush for the scratched and rough spots. I threw away paper towel as it became dirty, using fresh paper and oil to pick up more dirt.
Rough/scuffed areas absorb the oil, so they appear darker until it evaporates. It's not permanent.
Here's a photo soon after I started, (you can see lighter cleaned spots near the rim on the right) and a photo after I did more spot cleanin. You can see the dark marks disappearing, well as the surface lightening. I eventually did the entire surface.
(The dark marks are spots where glue was used to repair scuffs. The glue had been covered in beeswax, which seems to have absorbed grime more easily than the skin itself.)
(I didn't include a photo of the final result, because the sunlight faded rapidly and it's hard to capture the exact shift in hue in different light. Also, the skin is deeply scratched (during shaving?), which is more obvious now that it's clean, so it's not a pretty example to show off the technique's results)
To clean the skin on my djembe without using water, I used orange-oil household cleaner*, and it worked perfectly, with no damage to the skin. Removed the grime and oil, left it much cleaner and sounding better. (a little bit clearer, crisper, rings more vibrantly, less dull and "gummy" sounding)
*:Brand name of the cleaner here in USA is Citrasolv, but probably varies by country.
It's made of food-grade Limonene (from orange peels) and Orange Oil, with nothing else. (all essential oil so it evaporates entirely - beware other products which are not purely essential oil)
It was an experiment, so at first I was cautious, using only a drop or two at a time, but eventually I gained confidence, and was wiping the surface with it freely. I used paper towels to rub the surface, and a spare toothbrush for the scratched and rough spots. I threw away paper towel as it became dirty, using fresh paper and oil to pick up more dirt.
Rough/scuffed areas absorb the oil, so they appear darker until it evaporates. It's not permanent.
Here's a photo soon after I started, (you can see lighter cleaned spots near the rim on the right) and a photo after I did more spot cleanin. You can see the dark marks disappearing, well as the surface lightening. I eventually did the entire surface.
(The dark marks are spots where glue was used to repair scuffs. The glue had been covered in beeswax, which seems to have absorbed grime more easily than the skin itself.)
(I didn't include a photo of the final result, because the sunlight faded rapidly and it's hard to capture the exact shift in hue in different light. Also, the skin is deeply scratched (during shaving?), which is more obvious now that it's clean, so it's not a pretty example to show off the technique's results)