I hate to disagree with Mikey, but....The round blue badge reading "Made In Japan" is in fact a Star badge. I have a snare with this exact badge and all the parts are Star. It is an original badge from the early 70s. I have also had many other of the same badge, all having Star parts. The intruding post on the lugs is from the newer 9 ply shells as best I have been able to see. Not all later shells have this feature, so it may seem to one owner that his 9 plies have it, others may have it not.

Nice looking kit, too! I hope the mix of plies doesn't throw off your tuning.

As for heads, I use coated single ply Aquarians with Z-100 coating. They last longer and are cheaper by far than Remo. Clears just don't ring true on the thinner 3 ply shells, nor have I found them desirable on the thicker ones either.

The lugs on these are pre-1967 Star lugs. The '67 catalog shows the shark-tooth looking lugs, which are REALLY pointy! Cool set!

The STAR page:

http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/japanese_drums/catalog_star.html

Hey nopork-

I believe your toms on here are upside down. That would explain why the tops are not even with each other. I have run toms upside down - but only to avoid a seam in front, as when running a 4 piece, I set my toms up on the ride side of the BD, and most were designed with the paradigm of the tom on the HH side (right handers perspective here).

Please let us know what heads you run, how you tuned them and how they sound.

Thanks,

John

I ran some old Remo Pinstripe heads that I had laying around. They sounded pretty good tuned low. The funny thing was the 13" tom when mounted on the bass drum mount would have a dead sound loosing a lot of resonance. If held by the rim it would get it all back and have a beautiful tone.

I ended up selling the kit to a beginning drummer and he is a having a great time with it.

As far as the toms upside down I still believe that the 12" was an added tom and the 13" was the only tom the kit probably came with originally. The lugs and shells were different between the two.

Anyway I had fun rehabbing the kit and seeing the finished product.