Vintage Corner — maybe an antique

I’d been looking for one of these for awhile, but back-burnered the search in favor of acquiring the George Way edition of the Adler adjustable pad.

Then, this one popped up online for an insanely low price. The seller didn’t know what he had.

(That is often the case with the older practice pads, especially when the seller is a general collectible dealer.)

I’d guess it’s from the late 1920s or early 30s, but haven’t found one in any catalogs (even at DrumArchive). I’ll keep looking.

Note the adjustable tilt, and the tension knob that can adjust the tension of the calfskin head. Calf heads are subject to the vagaries of temperature and humidity, and it’s nice to see this feature in a practice pad. I won’t use it regularly, of course — it’s too old and delicate for that — but I love the fact that it’s still playable. 

Morning chop: Wilcoxon #29

Vintage Corner: 1960s Ludwig pad (my latest rescue project)

My Latest rescue pad. 

Clearly not a museum piece, the repaired split down the middle of the base needed some further shoring up and the rubber had to be re-glued. But it’s not bad now. I made a mute for it from scraps. (Also, while not visible in the photos, I eventually removed the white rubber "feet" and the tiny nails holding them in place. The rubber had hardened and shrunk, causing some of the feet to actually rattle against the wood when the pad was struck. I replaced these feet with some thick neoprene rubber squares, in case I ever want to remove the pad from its mounting bracket. The rattle went away with the old feet.)

My partner certainly likes how quiet it is. It feels great. I LOVE these old Ludwig pads, especially the earlier models made of oak. (Later versions used a lighter weight wood — pine? Fir? Unknown — that had a different feel and resonance. Try to find one made from oak if you can.)

Bonus: the tilt is pretty mellow when compared to other pads of the era, making it a nice pad for the younger player who is still getting accustomed to traditional grip.

These pads often show up at rummage sales and various online outlets (FB marketplace, eBay, etc) for as little as $15-20 plus postage. I got this one for $30 with the stand included. The black rubber they used tends to last a very long time and is still bouncy and responsive fifty years on. Anyone just getting into vintage practice pads will enjoy finding and using one of these without spending a fortune.

Want some inspiration in your playing? Check this out.

Run, don't walk to this page: https://www.facebook.com/classicsnaredrumsolos

-- and hang out with some deceptively simple drumming tricks, all shown on one drum.

This is about giving yourself limits and learning how to be creative within them. It's what superstar minimalist Stravinsky would be doing if he could only do it on one drum. Masterful, welcoming, inviting and encouraging. This is amazing stuff, very tasty and thoughtful and a fair amount of it is technically accessible by anyone who can play a snare drum. 

This guy is doing drummers a great service.

He also offers one-on-one zoom lessons. Go to his FB page to inquire.

Here's a little warmup from his FB page. Deceptively simple, and also challenging:

Vintage Corner: George Way’s “Henry Adler Tone Control” practice pad, 1950s

Readers will remember that last year, I acquired an early generation Henry Adler adjustable practice pad and was over the moon.

Well, I now have what is really the mate to that pad, existing at the other end of the historical arc. 

George Way’s version of this pad was licensed from Henry Adler and made by George Way Drums in the mid to late 1950s. This version of the design was manufactured for less than a decade, and when George Way was forced out of his own company by Camco Drums the pad was discontinued. It’s a rare pad and hard to find in any condition. A few years ago, one of Way’s pads was sold on eBay in poor condition, without the internal mechanism or the moving side doors; bidding was fierce and it sold for over $200 — too rich for my blood at the time.

But this was the version of the pad I’d been looking for all along. And I had an opportunity to buy one last month. It arrived this week.

 It works, though the slider tends to move when open and struck on top. The internal arms that hold the side doors are attached by means of a small leather piece that seems to provide for greater ease of motion; however, one of the leather pieces is gone, replaced by a small piece of steel band attached with a large thumbtack. The leather piece on the other side is intact, and got hit with some paint. I may look for a way to stabilize it further and keep it from rotting. The result of this mismatched repair is that one of the doors opens farther than the other, and doesn’t close fully with the lever is moved to the closed position.

The other issue is that Way chose to redesign the pad — he was always tinkering with designs — so that the door hinges are at the top, rather than the bottom as on Adler’s original design. He also replaced the simpler wood knob with a metal assembly that uses a sliding lever to open and close the doors. I actually think Adler had the better idea, as the weight of the open door would help to keep it in place to wherever it was adjusted; and the wood knob means fewer parts inside to potentially fail. Having the doors swing out from the bottom means that weight could cause the doors to fall slightly closed again, and that’s the case with this Way pad.

A previous owner applied white paint (Killz? Flat base? No idea) on the top panel of the pad. 

I was able to remove a lot of the white paint from the sides of ths panel by gently scrubbing it with a sponge and some warm water. The white paint on the top appears to have been applied directly onto bare wood where the yellow paint had completely worn away. I'm going to take it to my local paint supply and see if they can help me match the color, and if they can I’ll sand the to lightly and cover the white with a new coating of yellow.

I doubt I plan to do much more than that. The original red rubber on top still has rebound — though the rubber used on George Way pads always tended to be firmer than gum rubber anyway — and I won’t bother trying to remove the circles that someone drew on, probably with a ballpoint pen. The pad works, and I very happy to have these two historic “bookends” in my collection.

UPDATE: There was a strange little noise when I played on the pad that suggested cracks in the wood. I found the cracks.

They were mostly running through a couple of the side panels, which I sealed by inserting a tiny screwdriver, wedging the crack a little farther apart and dribbling glue into it. Then I removed the screwdriver, wiped away the excess and weighted it down overnight. After it was dried, the buzzing sound I first got when playing had gone away. It’s too bad that one of the worst cracks ran through the middle of the decal. After the glue dried, I applied a thin clear coat over the decal to preserve it.

The next day, I called four different places to find one that would sell me the smallest jar of matched paint, then went and got some. They tried to match as best they could, and warned me that it’s nearly impossible to match dirty, aged paint. They got close enough.

I decided to sand lightly and apply over the white, plus touching up a few other spots. 

Looks better than the white on top did.

I can live with it.

This is never going to be a museum piece , probably why I got it for a good price. But I’m happy with how it turned out.

The pad, after two light coats of paint. I tried to blend some of the paint over the original yellow so the different yellows wouldn’t look quite so stark. I think it worked out.

A little video, comparing the two pads, before I painted.