I've owned a few of these kits.

They may have been cheap drums, cheaply made but I'd take one of these old luan kits over just about any modern poplar shelled kit.

Gee, ya know. I've only been working with MIJs for 40 years or so, but in that time I've restored dozens of MIJs including quite a few Stewies. My experience has been that the Stewies tended to be some of the better of the bunch. Decent grade of wood, no gaps, and well cut bearing edges were the hallmarks of most of them. Having said that though, I have seen all of the problems you have described in various MIJs including some Stewies. Definitely a mixed bag, some are much better than others. There were over 100 distinct brand names these drums were manufactured under and quite a bit of variation.

Yes many were crap, but by no means all and no brand name was immune to imperfection. At the end of the day though, it's an unfair assessment to paint them all with the same brush. In any case, even the lowest grade of luan wood improves quite dramatically with age and today many are capable of producing a beautiful dark warm tone that just can't be replicated. You do have to sift through the junkers to find the better ones, but when you do, you really have a gem!

Interesting, I have never seen one like that. Yeah, that is strange and cheap. I have never had any of those 'brands' mentioned. Who made what? - as I have had both Pearl and Star made kits.

I see you re-cut that edge. Did that drum sound alot better after that? I had a Pearl made kit (with battleship lugs - 72-74) and for 20 years I could not get the 12in tom to sound good. I had the edge re-cut and after that it tuned up well and sounded great. Too bad it took me 20 yrs to figure that out! Since then, I have a kit ready to go, but can not move forward until I get around to having the shells inspected/re-cut. We can't put new heads on a shell that has not been inspected/re-cut. One of these days.....

I really like that they are 'cheap' as so long as we can get the edges true, they sound great. And as far as looks go, most of these look as good or better than the American made stuff - better variety of the same wrap.

Yeah, 40-50 years have done this luan good!

John

I have a set like that on the shelf right now, with an 1/8th inch gap in some of the shells. No bearing edges to speak of either. But the wood is actually in really good shape. I suspect once I true and recut the bearing edges it will sound great.

yeah, they graduate from "donk" to "dooom" after a re-cut

you have to beware about a serious amount of tearout you might get while doing so, on both sides

i did very tiny amounts, and STILL got some pretty prominent dings, especially on the outside (thankfully hidden by the drumheads)

but they still sound fine

"donk" to "doom" LoLoLoLo

That is funny!

This is an interesting discussion. I think the MIJ kits are a cool way to get into collecting, restoring, and refurbishing. Their price point is easy on the wallet, the finishes are often attractive and if they end up sounding good, so much the better. Regardless of how the wood matures, they are cheap drums made cheaply. Nothing wrong with that if they can produce what you want them to produce and if the worst case scenario is that you get to monkey around restoring on a kit without somehow feeling guilty about it, so much the better.

I think the real issue is rank snobbery. People get so wrapped up in judging by their own limited standards that they can't be objective. If there is a gap in the shell or a blemish in the wrap, they can't get past that. They can't believe a drum could be any good, sound good if it's not made the same way a domestic big name drum is made.

The final arbiter should be whether the drums sound good, and the fact is that despite their imperfections many, hell I'd say most, of those old Japanese drums sound damn good once you get them tuned up and put good heads on.

They may not sound like Luddies, or Slingies, or Rogers, but they have their own distinctive character that is beautiful in it's own rite. I wouldn't have them any other way.

I post this as some interesting evidence:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rttkRuMxgG8[/ame]

Dave, thanks for posting the pic of the blue sparkle rack tom, although, I'm not sure what exactly it is that I'm supposed to be looking at. I see some decent, if not perfect edges, a pretty nice looking wrap, and some darn nice chrome for an old MIJ. And that is a Hoshino to boot - probably the lowest quality of the "Big 3" MIJ manufacturers (from what I've seen anyway.) I'm not sure what the "gaps" are that everyone is refering to. Gaps in the plys? Ply seperation can happen to any drum - we see Radio Kings with ply seperation all the time.

As to the claims here about bearing edges - I can't agree with any of them. Every MIJ drum that I've seen has had a decent roundover contour. They may have not been finished to a very high degree, but a cursory, light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper is usually all it takes to fix that, if the drum hasn't been put through the ringer, which leads me to my next point.

These drums were purchased for a younger (usually teenaged) market, who usually had neither the means, inclination, or know-how to maintain them through the years. They were stored in attics, basements, garages, with varying degrees of humidity, moisture, dust, dirt, bugs, animals. Reso heads were often removed, cases/bags were rarely employed for protection. This is in stark contrast to someone, maybe a professional or a novice with the cash to drop on a nice Ludwig or Gretsch set, that could/would/did take much better care of a more expensive, higher quality instrument. I think, in light of this, it is remarkable that so many of the MIJs have remained intact at all.

Finally, to the question of one name versus another, there were really only 3 main manufacturers from the early 60s through the mid 70's: Pearl, Star, and Hoshino. It has been well documented that Pearl and Star made sets that were badged with the same name, and I see no reason why Hoshino couldn't have used some of those same names as well. So when we refer to 'good' Stewarts or 'bad' Stewarts, we should really be looking at what maker made that particular set and what is the problem with whichever given drum. The name on the badge is basically meaningless. From what I can deduce, if there was ever a 'higher end' or 'pro line' of MIJs, it was more of a marketing thing - most of the drums from this era, the shells anyway, were exactly the same.

Um, not not by a long shot. I have more than a dozen different MIJ's in my shop right now. I can tell you unequivocally that no two are constructed in exactly the same way. Each has differences ranging from subtle to dramatic. I have some with re-rings, some without. Some with very thin re-rings, some with very thick ones.

I have some with gaps in the wood as shown in Dave's first pic, some have no gaps. Some use a very dark stringy grade of Luan, some use a lighter colored more dense grade. Really the quality and construction style seems to be all over the map.

Some have good well rounded over bearing edges, and some have very crude ones, and some have no bearing edge at all, they are just the flattened ends of the cylinder. And don't get me started on the lugs and hardware.