I always enjoy working on different bongos our customers ship to us for repairs, refinishing, hardware and skin upgrades. Each unique set gives us the opportunity to inspect the build quality.
I noticed a few things about this factory made Gon Bops Mariano 7″ x 8.5″ set. The bridge is quite wide. The hooks on the tuning lugs are unnecessarily long. The ears on the crown are very shallow- barely enough room to get the hook through.
While ultimately successful, mounting skins on these drums was challenging with the lug and crown ear clearance. I chose amber Middle Eastern Steer- 1mm on the macho and 1.6mm on the hembra.