Hi all,
Here's another weird one to enter the collection.
1939 WFL 7x14 WMP Twin Sensitive Hollywood Swing Model
This model usually comes with 8 of the infamous "Zephyr" streamlined tension casings. This particular drum has a lug design that I have never seen on any WFL drum from the 1930s-40s (or any era) and, the 16 lugs are staggered (8 top and 8 bottom) on this shell. The lug design looks pretty basic i.e. a pressed metal shell casing, an insert and a spring. There is no real way to keep the spring secure inside the rounded lug design so the first lug to come off of the shell allowed the loose spring to fly across the room. Reassembling the lugs back onto the shell was also a drag but I succeeded after I got a little assembly groove going. Notice how WFL had to modify the lug directly above the twin strainers as compared to the rest of the lugs. The twin strainer lever design on this drum is also something that I have never seen. The two levers are very oversized as compared to the smaller/thinner twin strainer levers on all of my other WFL drums and any others that I have seen. Both levers came to me broken so I took them to my miracle worker machinist, Abe Abello so he could rebuild them for me. The photo tells the story; these levers are made of crap pot metal and literally disintegrated when any pressure was applied to them. Any restorative welding or repair was out of the question. I am astounded that this company would use a crappy metal like this on parts that would be in constant use...the bean counters at WFL won that round. All that could be done was to fabricate a new pair of levers and reattach them to the main twin strainer mechanisms. I commend Abe on his work, I think that he did a great job. All of the nickel plated hardware was in very good shape so a basic cleaning and polishing was all that was needed.
The shell is not the standard WFL 3-ply mahogany shell with reinforcement rings as the catalog states. This shell is 3-ply but the inside of the shell has a maple veneer, so we have, starting from the outside, the WMP wrap, a thin mahogany veneer, a thick mahogany piece and the maple interior veneer with maple reinforcement rings. The WMP was a tad "ivoried" but my usual regimen of plastic cleaner/polish knocked off a few layers of schmutz and brought back some life to the WMP finish .
Original WFL heads top and bottom and both sets of original wires rounded out this cleaning/restoration.
Feel free to weigh in on any of the above as I'd love to hear from you if you have anything to add.
Enjoy.