Just a word of warning, any oxidization around the lug screws /washers indicates that the lugs female thread will be fragile and real easy to strip out.. Give them a shot of WD40 or similar and follow the instructions on the can before "gentle" removal...

Cheers

John

Have started taking off the Slingerland lugs. So far I've only removed some from the top edge of the problem tom. Attached are pics of one of the lugs, showing sleeves that I think are too short, certainly shorter than my Ludwigs. Are they MIJ? Other pics show the lug in position, and as you can see the sleeves do not reach all the way through to the inner ply. Wrong?

Can I get a pic. of the tom fully assembled, I`m thinking you have splay on the T-rods. The rods should be at 90 degrees to the shell. They invented the lug insert to help with splay issues.

Those are the shortest mounting studs I`ve ever seen on a drum lug.

OK Chaps. I have now looked and disassembled my floor tom (I'll do the BD later). From the pics you can see that the screws holding the lugs to the shell are different ... however, the sleeves still only poke halfway through the shell. I have attached a pic that shows the two lugs: the small tom has the screw type screw & the floor has the hexagonal screw. Another pic shows there's a difference in the casting of the lugs, while the length of the sleeve remains the same. I've also attached a pic that shows how far in the sleeve extends, same as the small tom. If the small tom lugs were MIJ, then the floor tom would be original I think, but still have short sleeves!

Lastly, the screws that hold the legs, as can be seen, are different again, and I have not removed one to see how far into the shell they extend!

Something about these floor tom lugs makes me think they are US original. What does the team think?

The lug pictured on the left (Hex Head Screw) is original. The lug casting with the slot head screw is not.

I think it's possible that some sort of impact damaged the original lugs and shell, then those lugs were replaced. The sleeves on Slingerland lugs are often quite short, they do vary according to the shell thickness being used. ( Lugs on a 3 ply 70's BD shell the sleeves measure only 2mm). Obviously there needs to be a reasonable margin for the screw to take up.

Cheers

John

I have Slingerland lugs for both 3-ply and 5-ply shells and the length of the mounting foot is pretty much identical in length. In addition, I have lugs from the 60's, 70's and 90's and all are about the same. Is it possible that many of the lug holes were just poorly drilled from the factory? We've got a lot of great minds at work here and we'll get this figured out!

-Mark

Hi John!

Actually, the slot-head screws would be correct for the year these toms came out. Not exactly sure of the transition to hex-head screws.

-Mark

Well nothing is Ever 100%.. however the actual casting is different and those are not the Slingerland slot head screws that I remember..

Have not seen any genuine castings that look like that one... see what others come up with.

Cheers

added ( I am looking at the lack of a flat section underside at tension screw end of the lug )...

I was wrong about the sawing, which is good. The mounting foot looks about the right depth to pull up the wrap and the first ply or two, like you said. Again, from the casing indents in the wrap, the casings were definitely angling in at the top.

My new guess is that if the floor tom hex screws match the bass drum screws, then at least the screws if not the casings were replaced on the tom and possibly *not tightened down quite enough*.

Aha! How bout that eh?

Mitch