On the reso side

heads?????

I'm sure it's just the heads, the glue separates on the hoop, especially if your heads have never been cranked up. When I get new heads, I'll crank them way up until I hear that crackling sound, I'll stretch them out by pushing in the middle of the head and then tune them down just a bit.

Surely it must be the heads. If it was one of the lugs you would know about it. As Jonny says, I often tension new heads through the cracking phase. I reckon you'll be ok.

Sure, thanks for replies, I've heard the cracking sound when I've put new heads on drums, but this happened Absolutely when tightening at the lug, I could actually feel the key turn in my hand ' jump ' at the same time, they are tight where they feel like they don't want to turn any further. Better go easy... Or if I want to go for a higher tuning just go back to regular ambassadors or g1s, I have American vintage on now.. I will say these do give a great tone but not much crack. It's all cool though.

Have you taken the lug box off the drum to inspect it? Could of something given inside?

Probably just a bit of arthritis kicking in... nothing to worry about...:)

Cheers

John

Based on your description "I could actually feel the key turn in my hand ' jump ' at the same time...", I would strongly suggest you disassemble the heads and remove the suspect lugs in the area where the key jumped for a thorough up close inspection. It's not unheard of for the old Slingerland "Streamline" lugs, made of pot metal and nickel plated, to actually crack from stress and break apart. One must remember that these drums were manufactured to the standards of their time, those being hand crafted shells designed to bear the stresses of calfskin heads. Skin heads apply considerably less stress overall to a drum shell, when compared to modern mylar which is designed to withstand a minimum of 20,000 lbs. per square inch. If you detect hairline cracks in your lugs you can salvage the drum by replacing just the lugs, and if all is well you can simply attribute the "cracking sound" to the break-in period of the mylar head glue rings. Hope this helps.

Yes I reckon probably old age, it just makes me wonder if anyone has ever experienced for example a lug totally breaking or something, ha, I don't happen to have any worthless old drums to experiment on.