Today I’ve been inventorying all my drum and cymbal hardware. Or at least as much of it as I can lay my hands on. There’s still one or two bits laying around, such as a drum stool in the music room/office.
In the above picture, working clockwise from the Gibraltar hi-hat, at six-o’clock, there’s: a bunch of Yamaha stuff (the most numerous and most heavy-duty); a Premier triple-mount (across the centre); some unknown brand; CB Drums; and finally, two Big Dog (a now sadly defunct British brand) snare stands.
I didn’t get through all of it, either. There’s a bag full of floor-tom legs that I haven’t looked through yet. But this post is a place to catalogue the bulk of it.
The next pic’, above, is all the Gibraltar bits n’ pieces, which I mostly bought when I got my Gretsch Catalina Club Jazz kit. Not sure if I’ll keep or sell all this?
The aforementioned Gretsch kit only included a very few bits of hardware: the rack-tom pillar, and the floor-tom legs. I’ll only be selling these bits if I sell that kit.
The above is the portion of Mapex hardware I’ve set aside so far. In addition to this there’s a double-kick pedal (pictured below), and six floor-tom legs, which are mixed in with a whole load of floor-tom legs that need sorting out.
These next, pictured below, are unbranded, as far as I can see. I’m not sure how saleable these are, as they (ahem!) stand, as they appear to be missing various bits. I’m hoping I’ll be able to fix up any stands that are missing parts.
The same goes for some of this CB Drums hardware. I’d need a cushion for the seat. And a top part for one of the cymbal stands. This is definitely stuff I want rid of.
I think I’ll keep these two Big Dog snare stands, pictured below, at least for now. They’re useful for practice pads, secondary snares, or even Bonham style mounting of rack toms.
The biggest chunk of gear, by far, and I think I want to sell pretty much all of it, is the very heavy duty Yamaha (?) Series gear. I got this stuff to go with my Ayotte kit, many, many moons ago.
It’s superb stuff. And great for a permanent set up. But it’s too bulky and heavy for carting round gigging. That said, I did a lot of exactly that, for many years, with this very gear.
But that experience left me wanting to only use much lighter weight stuff! But then again, I might be jacking it all in anyway? So that may all be academic, now.
As well as being the most numerous, in terms of numbers of stands, the Yammy gear is also the stuff with most ancillary bits n’ bobs. Such as all the different length boom arms, pictured below.
Numerous further extras, and the very essential snare stand. These and the previous oddments allowed me to vary my cymbal set ups, and add percussion bits n’ pieces.
I hope I can shift all this Yamaha hardware? And I’m even more fervently hoping it’ll raise a few bob.
There are a number of other non-Yamaha oddments. Most of which I know what they are. But one or two I don’t. This is a mystery item:
Is the above some kind of percussion doodad holder? It looks like it wood have to mount on a very thin pole or stand… attached by the bit at left, in the above photo. Hmm!?
This Vruk thing, pictured below, is a pedal-extender, designed to amplify the effectiveness of a rocking back n’ forth heel-toe technique.
I got it after doing a review piece on it for Drummer, many years ago. The guy who makes them let me keep it. But once again, I’ve pretty much never used it. I wonder if anyone might buy it?
Then there’s stuff like these Pearl bits:
I also have some Pearl toms, inc. a couple of those Pearl rim mounts. I wanted to make a few mini bespoke busking type jellybean kits, with the various drums and shells I have laying around. But I don’t think that’ll be happening any time soon. So I’ll probably try and sell these odd drums.
Although I recently bought two vintage Premier stands, perhaps a tad foolishly (given recent events), until then, the only Premier hardware I had was this heavy duty triple mount. This could mount all sorts, such as two toms and a cymbal, for example.
These three, pictured above, are the three Ayotte ball-joint tom mounts, which came as part of the Ayotte kit I bought getting on for 25 or 30 years ago now. The kit is beautiful. But slightly odd and a little over-engineered.
I think all three of these ball-mounts no are both no longer complete, nor in good working order. That’s really hurting and annoying, as I really want to sell the Ayotte. But can’t, until these are fixed.
Ayotte is now defunct. So fixing these is a right cause-ache!
I’d like to say ‘last and most definitely least’, for the above L-clamps. But there is more…
I actually have three of these jingle-bells doodads. These two, and one that’s still plastic wrapped.
And finally, to round this post of, a bit of tinkering, by way of trying to restore a damaged part. In the above pic I’ve already ‘straightened’ out the bent thread by about 10°!
Trying to get it perfectly straight was getting nowhere. So I hacksawed it off. It was still incredibly difficult to remove the threaded bolt. But persistence paid off, and I finally succeeded.
Trying to unscrew the sawn off thread was ridiculously hard work. I’d only got it about a third of the way out, by which time I’d ground away the Philips head. As the above image attests, I then tried to saw/file a straight cut into it, for a normal flathead screwdriver. But the latter just kept slipping out. In the end it was a pair of ‘mole-grips’ that did the job.
A lot of work on a crappy old stand, which still requires not just a new threaded bolt, but washers, felts and a wing-nut. Is it worth the bother?
Anyway, that’s all for now, folks.