ODD TEMPO

The title of this particular post does not refer to the strange pace of a piece of music, but instead to this random drum that I recently restored.  This is a 12-inch, Champagne Sparkle, Japanese-made, "Tempo" tom-tom that I acquired for no discernable reason other than it did not have a home and needed some love and attention.

Yes, the wrap is faded and the chrome is quite dulled and pitty.  No, I do not have any other drums that match this one.  Still, it seems a waste just to let this poor drum deteriorate and continue to be neglected.  I decided to save it.

Other than its general appearance, here is one big reason this drum would not be desirable to vintage collectors: it has two tom mounts.  You never want to go modifying drums like this, drilling new holes and so forth.  Picky aficianados do not like this at all, so a drum's worth is greatly diminished if it has "extra holes," even moreso than a drum that is simply old and dirty.

In this case the wrap underneath both mounts was unfaded, which means the second mount was added early on before the drum aged.  I could not definitely determine which mount was the original, but guessed from past experience that it would be the "clip mount," since this was the typical style used on these Japanese models, or at least most of the ones I have restored in the past.  I decided to remove the other one.

Here is the drum all cleaned up and ready to play:

Looks pretty nice now.  And see, that clip mount cleaned up much better than the other one would have.

Well, that was a quick, one-night project.  Now I can move on to something else.