The stand came out great.
see below
I cut down the antique stand, sanded and primed it and then I painted it with a Krylon silver metallic spray paint. I added lengths of surgical tubing to the ends to protect the tom from any metal contact.
The bugger works great!
see below
Ok, back to tack pulling...
John
Wow... talk about being late to the party... I wish I saw this sooner.
This is Jeremy Esposito, the proud new owner of Walberg and Auge.
Purdie Shuffle, you landed yourself a treasure! I've only seen one other W&A drum in that color. To find a whole kit in that wrap... priceless.
Here's some information I can contribute on your W&A set.
- The drum set was most likely built by George Bernard in the late 30's - early 1940's, father of (RGB) Robert George Bernard. George started working for W&A in 1905. George was known for painting the inside of the shells in black.
- Drum Shells: The shells are most likely made by Jasper. .. but W&A applied the rerings and cut/fashioned the bearing edges. W&A also used Keller shells... but I'm not sure they were around during this time. I have a late 40's W&A kit with the same shell construction configuration as "Big Blue".
- Snare Drum: Strainer/butt plate, tension rods, posts and center mounts were made by W&A.
- Bass drum and toms: T-Rods, claws, center post (BD), spurs, tom strap mounts and lugs were made by W&A.
- All the hardware/stands were made by W&A.
Again... what a find... what a treasure! I'd love to put some pics of it in the W&A book. (It's about 90% complete)
Feel free to ask me any questions!
Here is a few pages from a 1940's W&A catalog that details many components of your set.
the floor stand/cradle turned out great. nice job!
mike
This is really getting good now.
Jeremy glad you found this. We have been waiting for you! :) Thanks for the catalog scan that's cool to see all the extras from back then! Helps complete the picture.
John I like the stand very cool!
Thanks All,
(*Greg - Stick around... it'll get better!)
Hello Jeremy! Man, were we waiting for you to arrive! I have questions for you, but first... based on the catalog photos I have the following hardware that came with my kit:
1. I have the Duplus tom stands (2 bar-stock pieces with the metal straps) including the base.
2. I have the Hercules tom-tom stand with the rolling casters.
3. I also have an L-cymbal arm that attaches to the bass drum, one cymbal stand, one hi-hat stand, and the snare stand that I just cut down to use as a cradle for my 14". I also have a box full of parts that I cannot identify. The kit came with a trap-table of all things which also includes various percussion doo-hickeys. It was a treasure trove of vintage W&A drums and hardware.
My first and most important question for you is; I need two of the female T-rods and one claw to complete the 13" tom that came with the kit. Are those parts available anywhere?
I will take and post photos of the hardware that came with the kit, could you please check them out and tell me what I have.
Based on the photos I have provided so far, do you think you can narrow down approximately when my kit was made. All we could piece together was that it was made in a 25 year period which isn't very helpful. 'Could be' 1930's all the way to 1955! If you could help me narrow that a bit, I'd appreciate it.
Finally... what would your best guess be as to current value for my kit?
Thank you for checking out the thread. I hope you stick around long enough to help me I.D. more of the hardware and parts that I have. BTW, how do you think I'm doing with the kit so far? :D
Mike - everybody, I'm happy with how the little stand came out. It really works great. Now that we've got Jeremy's attention, maybe we can solve some of the mystery's surrounding this kit.
John
My pleasure! O.. I forgot to mention the info about the tone controls.
The tone controls on the snare and toms were also made by W&A.
The felt tacked to the bass drum shell was not W&A's doing. They made a few styles of internal and external tone controls for bass drums. (see attachment)
One of them, not shown in the catalog image, is an internal muffler that would control/muffle the reso and batter heads simultaneously. It was operated on a "push and pull " linkage system. I'll get a pic of one soon for you.
