A deeper dive into 2B: Vintage Promark oak sticks, 1970s-90s

The 2B sticks that Promark made from oak in the 1970s and 80s are near and dear to my heart. They’re balanced so well and feel so good in the hands!

Here’s a not-so-scientific chronology.

Top to bottom, first photo:

— Mid to late 1970s

— mid 1980s

— late 1980s to early 90s

There’s not a ton of difference between the first two pairs. The tip size and shape are nearly the same, and the neck just below the pedestaled tip is 7mm in diameter. The butt end is shaped differently between the gold band pair and the mid-80s pair.

By the time we get to the third pair, the sticks are a full 2mm longer and the neck just below the pedestal measures 3mm, with a tip that is larger as well.

The diameter of the straight part of the stick (before the taper) is 14mm on all three pairs.

I don’t know why the tips and the neck got larger in the late 80s. Either it was a deliberate change in that model’s design, or perhaps it was a way to simplify stick production by bringing multiple models (2B, Rock) to the same neck size. Possibly it could have been a response to the number of players who suggested a stouter diameter to reduce breakage? I have no way of knowing.

(I do know that by the early 2000s, the shape of the 2B sticks changed again. The pedestal disappeared, the taper became almost klunky and thicker and the tip got longer and more ovalized. I’m not a fan.)

I like to search for these older Promark sticks online and at yard and rummage sales, because in my opinion they're just so much nicer than the bland, straight sticks that Promark has been churning out since they were bought by D'Addario (which also owns Evans). 

I also have older Promark oak sticks in 1S, 2S and 3S, and while they're heavier, they are so nicely balanced that chopping with them is a delight.

Sadly, as with all vintage drums and accessories, the farther away we get from the date of production, the harder it is to find vintage items in playable condition that haven't been bought up by bigger and wealthier collectors. Time marches on.

DIY Drummer: Make it yourself. PLEASE.

These two pads just went up for sale online. The same seller is offering them on eBay for an opening bid of $65 each, and a Buy-It-Now price of $85. Shipping is extra.

A. RealFeel knockoff, made with gum rubber and solid ash base.

It's a nice enough pad, likely homemade (by the seller or someone else).
The ash base will give it a different sound than the MDF base found on the original HQ pads and their Evans successors.

The gum rubber is glued a little sloppily to the base. You can see excess glue at the edges. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't pay this much for a pad that looks slapped together, especially when I can do a neater job of it myself.

You can easily make the same pad at home for a fraction of the seller's asking price.

Gum rubber is available from Zoro, Grainger and other online industrial suppliers. A 12" x 12" square of gum rubber, 1/4" thick will set you back $18-20. The base can be cut from scrap lumber, or made with a repurposed wood cutting board, either of which might be found for anywhere from Free to around five bucks at a thrift store. A small bottle of glue or epoxy can be found at Harbor Freight for less than ten bucks. Your total shouldn't be more than around thirty bucks, depending on where you course your components.

B. Duplex knockoff, made with gum rubber and solid ash slabs.

This will end up costing even less, owing to a smaller piece of gum rubber and the fact that you can easily source scrap lumber pieces to make your own pad. Wood screws hold it all together. If you size it right, the gum rubber can be glued on top of the screw heads to hide them for a cleaner appearance.

I scored a Duplex pad exactly like this at a thrift store for five bucks. But if you want to make one, it shouldn't cost more than about $15-20, tops. Again, the seller wants a Buy-It-Now price of $85 plus shipping.

Practice pads don't have to get out of hand. Make your own, saving money and enjoying chopping on something you made yourself.

Happy drumming.

My ongoing love affair with Vintage 2B sticks

I’ve loved 2B sticks for a long time.

Like most drummers, I started out with them. They provided more of a heft than 5A, the other standard size for young drummers, but were still silencer enough to serve as a good concert stick. In the 1940s and 50s, they also served as an alternative marching stick for the youngest drummers in school and community bands.

2B models from this era up through the early 1980s offered a medium to long taper and kept more weight at the butt end, which I still prefer. I’ve found that newer 2B sticks have tended towards a much shorter, less gradual taper and more weight towards the front end of the stick, which completely changes the balance and feel.

So over time, I’ve gathered older 2B sticks. I’ve used them in community bands and for pad chopping.

The nicest pairs live in this old Promark stick bag, from the late 1970s.

This isn’t the entire collection, which also includes some older Promark oak sticks from the late 1970s and early 80s that I use and enjoy often.

L-R: Jeff Rich vintage style, 2023; Fibes, 1970’s; Slingerland Haskell Harr, 1960s; Slingerland 2B standard, 1960s; Ludwig, 1970s; Ralston (possible Japanese stencil brand), 1960s; WFL, 1940s; Mercury US (stencil brand?), 1950s.

All but the Jeff Rich are made from hickory. I believe the Rich sticks were turned from bubinga or similar, heavier wood.

The tips here tend towards more of an elongated acorn shape, which would have been good for Rudimental and concert work, and would have forced the player to be consistent with stick angles when playing rolls.

It’s good to remember that in the 1950s and earlier, most Rudimental drumming happened on drums with wooden hoops, meaning that a rim shot wouldn’t have broken the stick as easily. Sticks from this era lasted longer as a result. If they were later used on metal hoops, their age and previous use may have meant they’d break more easily, making sticks from before the early 50s harder to find intact now.

Because sticks from this era were not matched for weight or pitch at the factory, drummers had to sort through a case of the same size and company to find pairs that would match. One of my fondest memories is of visiting Captain Whizeagles music store in downtown Portland when I was a middle schooler in the mid 1970s, and Fred and Toody Cole (the owners, and also founders of the seminal band Dead Moon) were happy to let me gently tap and roll sticks on their glass counter to sort out and rubber-band pairs, for myself and for the shop. If I sorted the whole lot, they’d give me a free pair, and then they’d mark up the rest because the matching had been done for the customer. Smart! 

I continue my search for older sets of 2B sticks. If you have any to rehome, reach out and let’s talk.

Happy drumming.

DIY drummer: refurbishing a vintage QuietTone pad

I had an opportunity to purchase an old QuietTone practice pad from the 1960s, back when Henry Adler still owned the company and was selling them out of New Jersey. Various drummers had tried to warn me off pads of this era, because of the worry that the internal base was made with asbestos. I researched this thoroughly, even talking with a former coworker of my mother’s from Georgia-Pacific. Now in his eighties and an amateur drummer himself, he showed me his two old Adler QuietTone pads, one of which he was refurbishing for his grandson. “There’s absolutely no asbestos in there,” he told me. “The internal base was made with compressed paper/cardboard fiber. By the 1960s, asbestos was a popular building material, but it splintered easily. No one would want a practice pad that gave off hundreds of tiny splinters with every stroke.”

My fears calmed, I made on offer on the vintage QuietTone pad and it was accepted. It arrived this week, and I set about refurbishing it into playable condition.

The pad was well-used, worn and showing its age. I took it apart and examined each component.

The original fiberboard base was intact, though badly warped from years of compression as the tension was increased over time. I decided to try and save it. Using some wood hardener, I brushed both sides of the base, allowing the liquid to soak in. I waited ten minutes for the surface to become tacky to the touch, sandwiched it between two pieces of chloroplast (the plastic material used for campaign signs), weighted it down and let it dry. I knew that the sign might stick to the treated base, but not too badly.

Then I tackled the metal bands with a Kool-Stop rust eraser, left over from my bike shop days and great for removing obvious rust. I followed that up with a small piece of Nevr-Dull and the metal bands looked much better after that. I was glad that the original white rubber “feet” were still intact; a tiny spot of super glue under each would ensure they didn’t fall off.

When the wood hardener had dried several hours later, I removed the weights, carefully lifted the base, and saw that it was much flatter than it had been. There were grooves worn into the base by the metal bands, so I made a mental note to reinstall the base at an angle to avoid damaging the grooved parts further. The last thing I did was to fill in a few small gouges in the fiber board with some wood putty, which I let dry and then sanded flush.

Finally, I traced and cut a couple of cardboard circles, a couple circles from very thin yoga mat material, and a circle from an old Mylar drum head. The original head was beyond hope, so I replaced it with a newer used head I had on hand. (NOTE: the QuietTone pad is designed for concert and jazz drum practice, and works best with smaller sticks and a Remo Ambassador head. Anything heavier or thicker will deaden the response and tone, providing a less satisfying experience.)

Then, I reassembled the pad upside-down: 

— drumhead laid into the hoop

— Mylar layer

— two yoga mat circles

— the base, set at an angle in relation to the tension rod holes

— two layers of cardboard 

— the metal bands

It came together beautifully. Eventually, I’ll replace the hardware so all the tension bolts and nuts match, but for now the old, mismatched hardware works well enough. The result is a really nice practice pad that will enjoy many more years of use.

If you want to learn more about using and caring for QuietTone practice pads, Rick Dior has made a very informative video covering all of that, plus some history about the development of the pad. It’s worth your time.

More DIY pad love: From the Philippines

This showed up on the Facebook Drum Pad group today.

Ivan, a young man in the Philippines who marches in drum line (drum corps is huge in the Philippines!) saw the Rudimental Control pads online, wanted one but could not afford it. So he made his own version:

"I just wanted to show my drumpad that I’ve made, rudimental control pads inspired me to make this one, i have used a phenolic board and a yoga matt underneath the drumhead and i have also put snare wires beneath the head, and here’s a soundcheck of me playing the snare break from elite percussion from the Philippines."

Getting any US-made marching percussion into the Philippines is extremely difficult and expensive because of the exchange rate and the high cost of overseas shipping. 

Phenolic board is a lanimated material using wood fiber and resins, similar to MDF but constructed more like plywod, that can be cut, sanded and painted. It's heavy and dense, and can be difficult to hand-saw, especially into a round shape. Ivan did a nice job on this, and even got a nod of approval from Nissan at Rudimental Control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

UPDATE from Ivan: “I have repainted the base wood and cleaned the rims and the tension rods.”

If he had to clean up the hardware, then he got it used from another drum.

If you look closely, you can see that the round was hand-sawn. That’s super hard to do.

Very nicely done all around.

Kudos to this young man for working out his own solution. Happy chopping!