Can one of the Rogers experts set the record straight on the Swivo tom holders? Mark (idrum4fun) and Dave's (jdz) tom holders look to be the same while leedybdp's appears to be different.

Howie,

I started a thread on DFO about the kit. Concerning it's age, Gary N. offered this info,

"The set sports bowtie tension rods on the bass and it is flat gray on all the interiors. I would place it around 1965. After April 1966 it might of been speckled interiors and bat wing Dayton era looking tension rods around the bass."

slingerfan, they are all the same tom holders. Howie's is just facing the back.

Dave

Yep. I like the Swivo arms positioned the way I have them with the short end in the mini knobby receivers on the riser's cross bar and the longer end going into the tom.

Dave; The DFO fuhrer won't let me sign in. No big loss. Did you look up the serial numbers in the guide? If you would like a copy, message me your email address so that I can send you the PDF file.

leedybdp:

If your tom arms are correct for that overall era and Top Hat setup, they will have hex arms on one end and round arms on the other end. The round end fits into it's female mate on the bass drum mounted tom holder and the hex end fits into the Swiv-o-matic mounts on the toms.

Serial numbers, flat grey paint and that earlier twin tom mount all tend to indicated 1966.

Nice set!

Dan... I'm not going to argue with you about that. As far as I know, the short tom arms with this drum set are the parts that came with the drums when they were new. As I stated early in this thread, running changes took place with the product line before CBS owned Rogers, during the time that I was a District Sales Manager for Fender/Rogers/Rhodes, and after CBS sold off the product line that Fender managed for CBS. There were times when parts on hand that served the purpose were used when the parts originally specified for the purpose were unavailable. I dealt with such issues for thirty years as a manufacturer's representative. "Yes, Mr. Music Store Owner. You can tell the guy, who ordered the drum set, that the factory changed the specs for the Swivomatic tom arms when his new drums were made". So, what you think are the correct tom arms may have been the correct tom arms for some Rogers drums that shipped from the factory, and so are mine. I really don't care if that's the case. I know that hex rods work better than round rods to lock in place within a Knobby receiver or a mini Knobby receiver on the Top Hat's cross bar. This is a case of different rather than right and wrong.

Hi leedybdp!

Can you provide some large and clear pictures of the Swivo tom arms? Your only picture is just too small to really see what everyone is talking about. I know everyone would certainly like to see the arms that came with your excellent kit!

-Mark

Thanks for the compliment on the drum set. You may notice that I added a little memory lock to the center hex rod for the Top Hat mounting tree.. I plan to do the same thing for the floor tom legs and the bass drum spurs. I have done this for other drum sets. In addition to providing another locking mechanism for those parts, the little memory locks serve as place markers for reassembly of those parts on the drums.

Here ya go....

What you say is quite possible. That kind of thing happened in many manufacturing environments. I was trying to be helpful, not trying to render a decision that would necessarily indicate your kit didn't come from the factory the way it is now.

Nevertheless, from a design point of view, Joe Thompson no doubt had in mind that certain parts would go together with each other in any of his hardware setups. For the Top Hat, it was Swivo arms smooth and round on one end and hex on the other. Obviously, he gave it some more thought later on that resulted in the Londoner mount with hex rods, collets and collet noses on both sides of the setup.

Interesting details Dan. So is the hex/hex vs. hex/round on the Swivo arms a year to year difference or a kit to kit difference?