The last fortnight has been so surreal but also immensely rewarding. I feel more confident about my approach to percussion repairs and now have a roadmap for how to turn this into a robust career.

The second week of my fellowship focused on more involved repairs, moving from servicing into restoration and even a bit of fabrication. Although more advanced than projects that I’d attempted on my own, I relished the challenge to expand my skill set.

Same as my previous post, I’d like to share some highlights from the second and final week of my fellowship

It’s been amazing getting to focus in such a concentrated way on percussion repairs and servicing. Apart from developing a huge shopping list of tools and products to buy upon my return to Adelaide, this fellowship has been incredibly beneficial and confidence building.

Learning from my mentor, Dave Egan aka The Sydney Drum Doctor, has allowed me to fill gaps in my knowledge base, clarify underlying principles and review previous projects. To help make sure all the new info sticks in my memory, I thought I’d share a little about what I’ve been working on this week.

As the year races to an end I thought I’d indulge in a bit of sentimentality and reflect on how much Fulcrum has grown since 2024. When stuck in the weeds of the day-to-day, it can be hard sometimes to see just how much progress you’ve made. Looking back though, I’m really proud of what I’ve learnt this year and where the business will be going in 2026.

While at university I learnt the basic theory of how percussion instruments are constructed and how the parts work together. However, no one ever really taught me how to repair my instruments when they broke. The vast majority of what I know now is self-taught, gained through trial and error and repetition. And it’s that repetition I’d like to focus on today. While there are certainly skills I still want to learn, there are some tuned instrument repair jobs I’ve completed so often that I could do them in my sleep!

So, here’s to some of the most common mallet percussion fixes!