Vintage Corner: "Set the Pace" silent practice drumkit by Ralph C. Pace, 1960's

I just obtained this, thanks to the guys at Revival Drum Shop (who know my love affair with practice pads and offered me first dibs on this one at a very affordable price).

Ralph C. Pace was a drummer, inventor and music teacher based in New York who patented a quiet practice kit for use at home.
He built each kit by hand at his home in White Plains, cutting, sanding and assembling the wood pieces, and shipped them to drummers all over the country who found them an invaluable tool for silent practice when the occasion required it. He made perhaps a few hundred of these kits at most, between the late 1950's and early 1970's.
A number of professional drummers endorsed his product; and parents wondered why they'd bought their child a real kit when they could have gotten this instead. As you can see from the photos, the kit is designed to be adjustable so that a drummer can approximate the height and width of his/her actual drumkit set-up.
                                                                            
  

A fully-functional version of this kit is rare and very hard to find, and I've seen one perhaps every other year or so listed for sale through a vintage drum specialty dealer.

This one, as you can see in the photos, needs some restoration and/or refurbishment before it can be used again. I have decided to make it usable again, utilizing replacement rubber tops that may be a little softer than the originals were. I will probably cut four tops to size, and put one back while I decide if I want to remove the one top that's still there or let it be.
And since practicing at home on my actual kit poses problems for my freelance writer wife, I will probably use this kit quite a bit more.

I'm pretty excited about this find and will share more photos once it's ready to rock. Happy Drumming!

Repairing a damaged Vic Firth pad

I purchased this pad from someone on OfferUp. The price was right and this double-sided pad, one of Vic Firth's nicest, is no longer made.
It arrived two days ago in the mail, wrapped in a single layer of padded envelope material. The padding was not nearly enough to protect the corners of the particleboard platform from being knocked around and damaged.

I contacted the seller, who responded with, "Caveat emptor, crybaby".
I reported him to the admins at OfferUp. The next day, his seller profile was gone from OfferUp, meaning I would not get any help from him or from the platform in terms of a whole or partial refund.
So there was nothing left to do but repair the pad as best I could.

That's fine. I like to repair things.

After carefully, examining the damage to the particleboard, I surmised that the best way to proceed was to remove some of the crushed, expanded bits, flood the area with glue and clamp in place while it dried. 

Since there were at least three corners of significant damage, repairing the pad could take a few days.

 

 This worked out more or less as I expected; it's not pretty, and I'm not a woodworker. But when it's completely dry in another day or two it will be hard enough for me to lightly sand the surfaces, apply a couple coats of clear nail polish and call it done.

The weather here in Portland is unseasonably warm and humid -- and I'm aware this could become a new normal -- so drying will take a little longer.

Obviously, particleboard does not lend itself to finesse, either in the repair or the result; but I'm hopeful that the repairs will be solid when done.
An early peek this morning hints at how well they'll hold up when finished.

A little more filler, perhaps with a glue/wood crumb mixture, should fill the remaining gaps.
Sanding the hardened glue/wood patches should give me enough of a surface to apply some clearcoat over.

The rubber won't lay perfectly flat at the edges where the repairs are, but considering how inexpensive the pad was and my lack of other options, I can live with it.

UPDATE: In the end, the wood bits were just too crumbly to hope for a nice, even surface. After everything dried, I decided the best way to finish it off was with a carefully-applied, drum corps-style tape job. All things considered it worked out quite well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For my money, it is nearly always better to repair something than to replace it.
Happy drumming.

A custom case for a custom pad

I decided to take the vision further, and turned an old shop case for Rema patches and glue into a presentation case for my custom Rema Tip Top practice pad.

To create a padded, protective liner for the pad, I used layers of plastic padded envelopesstacked and glued together, cut out a hole in the center to fit the pad, and then assembled it, using the leftovers to create stabilizers that I glued inside the lid. In a nod to my tool box, I'll add more cycling stickers to the inside of the lid until it's covered.