FINAL TOUCHES ON THE 26"

The other 26-inch head came today and I was finally able to put this massive drum together to see what it looks like restored.  I am pretty thrilled.  As far as appearance goes, I couldn't be happier.  As far as sound goes, I still have a little work to do.

I may have mentioned this before, but this bass drum spans TWENTY SIX inches in diameter, while measuring only nine inches deep.  This gives me plenty of bass drum to work with without taking up too much room lengthwise.  Still, that is a lot of air space with which I must deal, so experiments with other drum heads and muffling will occur.

One interesting obstacle I had to overcome in order to use this drum as a kick drum was spurs (or legs).  Since this was a marching drum intended to be carried, how was I going to balance it on the floor and attach a bass drum pedal?

The answer was rather simple.  There was no way I was going to drill holes in this Vistalite shell and install new spurs.  Instead, I did what jazz drummers back in the old days did: I utilized hoop-mounted spurs.  Yes, before the modern drum kit, old-timey bass drums didn't always have built-in spurs that retracted into the shell.  They had legs that mounted on the front hoop and steadied the drum.  Surprisingly, these nifty contraptions are still available today if you can find them.  This pair I am using are reproductions, not actual vintage spurs from back in the day.

UNWARRANTED LESSON OF THE DAY:

You see, my young whippersnappers, in the early days before the heavy-duty, double-braced, triple-section, fully-adjustable boom cymbal stand was developed, drummers who played in "big bands" and orchestras mounted lots of stuff on the bass drum.  In the earliest of those days, cowbells, woodblocks, temple blocks, cymbals and even tom-toms were all mounted with hardware that clamped onto the wooden hoops.  It was quite common for the drummer, who also served as a percussionist, to have a little "trap table" mounted on top of the bass drum to hold various hand-held instruments he used to make sound effects (tambourine, vibra-slap, flexi-tone, slide whistle, shaker, etc.)

So the magnificent 26 is basically finished.  Now what am I going to do?  Well, when this adventure started, Mr. Bilbo Baggins, I had set out to find a bass drum around which I would build another kit.  Here's the kick.  Now it's time to find some toms and a snare to go with this big boy.....

Hmmm.....I'm thinking of jelly beans.....