These are kind of a mystery. Part of a package deal where the guy just cleaned out the basement to get rid of everything drum-related; Represented to me as a pair if MIJ timbales, the mounting system was a home-made 2x6" wooden creation, with two long 7/16" bolts running through added holes in each shell. They are 6x13 and 6x14, and I immediately noticed they were HEAVY. When I finally got around to trying to ID them, I noticed the shells were non-plated brass, with a nice thick coat of black spray paint, then silver again over the outside. At least he took the hardware off! When I pulled the lugs off the 13, I noticed they were heavy, well plated castings and REALLY looked like Slingerland lugs. So I looked up Slingerland timbales, and they definitely made something similar in the 70s, but all Slingie timbales I found used the small (tom-tom) sized lugs, and these are the big (bass-drum) sized lugs. Next, pics in catalogs show long rectangular "Slingerland" badges with 1 mounting screw on each end on their timbales; mine have no trace of such a thing. But mine DO have an extra set of holes and the outline of another "floor-tom leg" mount on the shell which matches up with catalog pics of a cowbell holder... Hmmm. The rolled over edges on each end of the shell don't look like Slingie bearing edges of the era to me, but I've never seen their timbales before- maybe it's correct? When I compare the lugs to known Slingerland lugs (but from the early 60s), they are not exactly the same, but pretty darn close. Note that the my shells use one intentionally elonganted hole for each lug, and steel backing plates rather that spacers with the bolts. The hoops also look like Slingerland pieces- THICK, heavy brass circles, each with two small round ears that evidently mounted over little posts to hold the drums in place; no other ears/holes. Bass-drum like clips over the hoops, and standard tension rods. Anybody got a theory?
I've started stripping/de-denting the 13" shell and hope to polish it up decently. There is a nicely soldered/finished vertical seam, and thinking about the limited demand for timbales like this (whether or not they're MIJ or Slingerland), I'm strongly considering converting BOTH of them into 6-lug snare drums; Converting to 8-lug (my preference) would not be practical as far holes go. So how would one go about pressing a snare bed into these? Thoughts?
