I too remember the Sonor drums, just hadn't thought of them -- the MIJs are what popped into my mind and was what I was thinking of when I posted earlier.

What I remember most about Sonor was that when I was a kid, Jenkins Music in Topeka, Ks. started stocking them. I distinctly remember the teardrop staggered lugs, and the wood finished shells. They also stocked Majestics (with staggered lugs) in the satin flame finishes. But in my mind (back then), it had to be LUDWIG and sparkle finish. That's what I had my eye on and all that mattered anyway.

If Sonor didn`t stagger the teardrops on the 10 or 12, they would touch each other !!

Obviously ,some shallow drums have to have staggered lugs but I think the original question was regarding , why some drums have staggered lugs , when there is no potential contact between the lugs ,if they were not staggered. Am I reading this correctly?

You certainly are, calfskin! Thanks for circumventing back to the original point.

Brian

a reason NOT to like staggered lugs, in the case of my project Star kit, is when re-wrapping you can't hide the seam behind 2 lugs, which is a shame.

Yep. Good point, Andrew. I suppose that like everything in life, there is a compromise, even when re-wrapping these old beauties! Thanks for the input!

Brian

dallas were the first to use staggered lugs. the reasons are quite convoluted

although shallow toms can demand demand offset lugs, the simplest solution would have been to use snare lugs, not offset lugs.

so the real question is "why didn't they just use snare lugs on shallow toms instead of adding the extra expense and weight of offset single ended lugs?"

the answer is that there was a desire to make drums look 'american'. although uk drums traditionally used single ended lugs on floor toms (except dallas carlton) they used double ended (snare) lugs on toms.

this made their designs look 'dated' and 'un-american' hence the move to single ended lugs on tom-toms. the dallas lug was too long and HAD to be offset on shallow shell toms. they simply carried the offset to the floor tom for consistency.

a further example is why dallas carlton dropped the 'king' brand and used 'president' - americanisation.

B&H used offset lugs on their piccolo snare drums, and on their really shallow snare drums they just machined off the points of the bullet lugs, just to make them fit(!) this was done because they never ever bothered to make a double-ended version of their bullet lug. they did develop double ended lugs for their rogers snares, and later nu-sound snares.

Thank you roger.kelly for your insight! You've brought up some very interesting points. To be honest, I never even thought of the "Americanization" angle. The more I think about it though, the more it makes sense. Even today we see this marketing strategy at work. How many Japanese cars are given American sounding names? Appliances. Clothing. Tech stuff. Even tires! Thanks again, sir!

Brian

you are very welcome

see almost every vintage uk drum here: http://ukdrums.weebly.com

As far as Majestics being offset, mine had Sound King lugs and they are offset. No real need for it, just brand consistency, I guess. Not the same with Apollo, even though they were owned by the same distributor, St. Louis Music Supply. Why they used offset for Teardrops and straight set for S-Ks makes no sense to me.

When you hold the badge names to like 30-40 of the most popular MIJ "name brands", such as St. Louis Music Supply did, you can make any option decisions you like. Personally, I like the look of the off set lugs, but the imbalance on the 6 lug bass made it difficult to get your bass set and keep it from running away. Using a pair of cheap, ebay used bass anchors kept mine in place nicely, thank you. If you look around a bit on ebay, you can find vintage ones for near nothing, I bought 2 old ones last year for $.25 each. The shipping was $2.00, so for $2.50, I got 2 vintage bass anchors, one Ludwig, one Star....pretty cool, huh?