Vintage update: Sam Ulano’s King Size Pad, refurbished

Remember when I got this gigantic practice pad?

I was thrilled to add this vintage pad to my stable. But I was also really nervous, because the large slab of gum rubber was showing its age. I worried that I’d ended up with a museum piece rather than a playable vintage pad. My goal with nearly all of my vintage pads is that while they’re historic, they should also be in decent enough shape to at least offer a short demonstration if asked.

I sat on this pad for a couple of months and asked around about ways to restore the rubber. After not getting a reassuring answer from anyone at local hardware stores or the handful of woodworkers I know, I weighed whether or not replacing the gum rubber would make sense. Gum rubber from fifty or more years ago is unlike what industrial suppliers call gum rubber today, and I worried I’d lose the feel by replacing it.

Finally, today promised to be a sunny, dry day and I decided it was time to act. I’d gently pry up the original rubber. If it was too degraded, I’d replace it with a new piece cut to the same size.

I took a deep breath, applied a thin flathead screwdriver to one edge of the rubber slab, and gently began to pry up the rubber. I took my time and pried a tiny little bit at a time before taking the whole slab in my hands and slowly tugging on it. To my relief, it came up in one piece. I was surprised to see that it was almost 1/2” thick, rather than a more standard 1/4”. 

(The top of the gum rubber, a

Ready hardened and crumbling, cracked even more as I pulled it up.)

To my even greater relief, the rubber was only degraded (by air, light, and time) less than 1/8” down; the other side of the slab was like almost new. Whatever glue had been used to adhere the rubber into the wooden frame had stayed with the wood. 

All of this meant that I could simply flip the rubber over and glue the old side down into wood frame, and the fresh side could be the new playing surface.

I lightly sanded the wood frame, applied a thin layer of wood hardener, and set it in the sun to dry. Out in the sun, it took about five hours to dry thoroughly. (I was careful not to get any hardener on the hard rubber surface on the reverse side.)

When the hardener was dry, I lightly scuffed up both the wood surface inside the frame and what used to be the top of the rubber slab, wiped off the excess crumbs from the rubber and the wood, and applied the glue.

Then I carefully pressed the rubber back into the frame. It was a snug fit and I took my time to make sure it would be fully seated all the way around. Then I weighted down the rubber and let it sit for two hours. This evening, I checked my work, and was happy with how it had turned out.

I tried it out and noticed that without the thin hardening on the top of the rubber, the feel and response is a touch softer now. I think this will be best with concert or drum kit sticks. With 1/2” of rubber, marching sticks will feel a bit sluggish, and I suspect that’s not what Sam designed these pads for anyway.

In case there’s still an odd smell — I was born without an olfactory sense so I can’t tell — I’m letting it air out overnight in the shed, right next to the open screen window. It should be ready to bring into the house tomorrow.

Vintage Corner: Sam Ulano’s King Size Pad

Sam Ulano was a jazz drummer and drum teacher based in New York. He wrote and published many instruction books that are still in use today, and one of his quirkiest claims to fame is the one gig he played for the band PiL (Public Image, Ltd, with John Lydon before he founded the Sex Pistols).

Sam taught numerous drummers over a fifty year period and designed his own practice pads and practice sticks. His sticks were made from sections of metal conduit, and were designed for use on heavy rubber practice pads. You can find a couple of his pad designs in YouTube videos, like this one.

(Photo stills, enlarged, from the video)

Note the construction and size of the pad, with gum rubber set into a panel atop a blue wooden box.

I’d assume the handle is for ease of carrying, and that the box is hollow for resonance (though perhaps a drawer could be opened on one side to store a lesson book). I’ll need to research further to find better photos and information about this particular pad.

In other videos, Sam is shown playing on a big, flat pad. Here’s a photo still of that style of pad, taken from another video (with low production values, but you can still see the pads he and his student are using).

I acquired one of the flat styled pads this week in an online sale. This pad had previously been offered by another seller, at a price I couldn’t afford at the time. Six months later, it showed up for sale again, this time from a seller of random vintage items. I watched the listing for another six months and finally made him an offer that we could both live with. 

The pad is well used and probably dates from the 1960s or 70s. 

The top side is a panel of thick, pure gum rubber, of the kind available between the 1940s and 1960s, inset into a wood frame. It has a great feel even now, but the rubber has disintegrated with use and time. If I play on it, tiny crumbs of dried rubber flake off. I’m researching a way to preserve the rubber and make it safer to play without damage.

The bottom side of the pad has a much harder black panel of rubber that resembles the stuff found on the earliest versions of the HQ Real Feel pads. It has rebound, but is much harder in feel and tone.

The whole thing is supported by a thick wooden frame that measures around 13” x 11”, with playing surfaces measuring 12” x 10” — making for a very big practice pad.

I’m very glad to add this to my collection of vintage pads. I’m hoping to stabilize the gum rubber so I can use the pad regularly. Stay tuned.

UPDATE, May 8 2026: I heard from someone who studied with Sam back in the day and saw photos of my pad online. He informed me that Sam had his students make their own pads based on his design and instructions. So this adds another layer of interestingness to an already really cool, historic pad.

I LOVE that making your own practice pad was par of the instruction for these drum students!