Hi Josh!

Wow, 40 years old now! While it's not what many of us here consider "vintage", they still qualify due to age! I'd certainly like to see your progress in the conversion from concert toms to two-headed toms!

-Mark

With Mark all the way, Josh!

Brian

Very well, brothers.

I acquired this set of 1982 Yamaha YD9000 (Precursor to the Recording Customs) drums about 1 month ago. I paid $900 for them, which included the nine Yamaha drums you see in the photos, plus a 6 1/2 x 14 Tama Granstar chrome-over-birchwood snare. The purchase also included a Zildjian 16" Projection Crash and a 22" Sabian Paragon ride, which is now my favorite ride cymbal. The drum sizes are 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18 floor and 22 bass. Only the floor tom and the bass drum have the double-ended long lugs we associate with Recording Customs. All of the other toms are single-headed concert toms. The set was in good condition overall, with only a bit of clean-up needed. No rust anywhere, and the little amount of tom rash is hardly visible.

Nevertheless, I removed all of the hardware and placed what would fit in my small Harbor Freight Ultrasonic cleaner with about two ounces of Dawn squirted in the water. All I needed to do to the chrome was wipe it dry to a high gloss. The hoops required a bit of elbow grease with my favorite chrome polish, Flitz.

The wrap on the shells was a little dirty, so a quick wipe with a damp rag, and then a waxing with Nu Finish car wax took care of it. After living with the drums as concert toms for a month, I decided that I wanted to convert the 10, 12 and 14 to two-headed toms. I will possibly do the same to the 16 in the future, but for now I needed it for a donor drum for the lugs and tension rods, along with the 15 (which is too close in size to the 14 and 16 to make much sense).

I should also mention that the Yamaha double-tom mounts were all in need of replacement. Each one had the nuts being pulled through the casing and not functioning well (see photo). Luckily, Yamaha still makes these with one small difference: They are made in China instead of Japan. Because they are concert toms, they have a different type of mount than typical Yamaha ones. They have blades, like Ludwig used for their concert toms, except the blade has a handy feature: two screws can adjust a plastic wedge to dial in a wobble- and rattle-free fit.

The first order of business (after removing all of the hardware again), was to check the top bearing edge, and the bottom edge that would also become a bearing edge. I started with the 14, and it was pretty far out of whack, which explains why I had trouble getting a good sound out of it. This was the only drum that sounded bad.

The top bearing edge was about 3/32" out in places. That's a lot! Almost 1/8"! I have a bench with an MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) top, which is almost perfectly flat. On top of that I have a sacrificial 1/4" plywood sheet. I glued four sheets of 100-grit sandpaper to the plywood. I rotated the bearing edge against the sandpaper, twisting it back and forth a set number of times before rotating it about 45 degrees and repeating until I had a flat surface all the way around the edge. I checked my work by moving the plywood to the side and placing a bright flashlight toward me on the MDF. By slowly rotating the drum shell I could see if any light shone through any gap between the shell and the bench.

The first photo is the plywood with the sandpaper attached. The second photo shows the bearing edge on the top of the shell before starting. The third photo is the bottom edge of the drum. Lastly, a photo of the method of seeing how flat the edge was.

The original bearing edges were pretty complex. The slope toward the inside of the drum is about 35 degrees. I do not have, and couldn't find locally, a 35 degree chamfer bit. I decided to go with 45 degrees, which I do have. The outer slope is curved slightly from its apex to the outer edge. I used a 45 degree chamfer bit here too, but then did some gentle hand-sanding with flexible 220-grit paper. It took a while, but the new edge closely matched the original. The apex is not centered on the shell thickness. Rather, it is about two-fifths of the way from the outer edge. I rechecked the level of the new bearing edge on the top and bottom, and am satisfied with it (no light through). I recut the edges on my router table.

Once the new edges were cut with the router, and I sanded the desired profile, I continued to gently sand with 320 and 400-grit paper, followed by two non-woven sanding pads. Then I applied two coats of furniture wax to the newly cut and sanded surfaces.

Next, I laid out the new lug holes on blue tape instead of the shell wrap. Using a right-angle straight edge, I laid out the location of the line of holes I would need to drill. I checked my work by using the straightedge from the other edge to confirm it was straight.

Using my combination square, I set the sliding blade to the location of the existing holes. I transferred that mark to the new hole locations using the combination square. From the location, I used a vernier caliper to mark the distance from the first hole to the second lug hole.

Here are the finished products, at least the 14 and the 12. Still waiting on the hoop for the 10.

Hey Josh!

I'm enjoying everything about this restoration! Excellent job with the new edges and drilling. Where did you get the extra lugs? Are they still available from Yamaha?

-Mark

[QUOTE[/QUOTE]

Mark,

I couldn’t find any new ones, even from Yamaha. I took them off of the 15 and 16. I am still four short for doing the 10” tom, so I ordered some Slingerland replicas for that. I hope to eventually locate enough proper Yamaha lugs to replace the imposters AND make the 16” concert tom into a floor tom. Getting the long double-ended ones would be ideal for that.

For hoops, I just ordered Gibralter 2.3mm ones. I think I will post a WANTED TO BUY ad for the lugs.

Josh