Tama Imperialstar King-Beat snare: Replacement Lugs

Far left = lugs prone to crack

It's a well-known fact that early-80's Tama Imperialstar "King-Beat" snares and some Superstar (Mastercraft) models have lugs that are prone to crack under extreme pressure.

Drum sites are full of guys lamenting a busted lug on their beloved old 80's Tama.

Looking for replacement lugs?

Well, you've just found 'em.

I'm gonna keep this post short and to the point:

• Do not try lugs with 2" (51mm) spacing for your old Tama snare!!!
• You need 1-15/16 inches (49mm)
• You can get 1 15/16" lugs in Europe from ST Drums
• UPDATE: I checked the ST Drums page and they seem to have changed this lug to 51mm, not 49. Please be careful before buying. Sorry for any trouble!
• This one is listed as 49mm: https://stdrums.com/en/p/st352sn 
• This baby right here: ST-LUGSNDO80

They will work perfectly for your Tama snare. I also heard they may work for Rogers Dynasonic, which apparently also has 1 15/16" spacing center-to-center.

My snare with ST Drums lugs, model ST-LUGSNDO80

This is a 2" lug. It won't work.



You want this. From ST Drums. Model ST-LUGSNDO80.
As noted above, they changed the hole spacing on this model! Be careful when buying anything! This one is listed as 49mm: https://stdrums.com/en/p/st352sn

(Pardon my cats)

OTHER OPTIONS

• Another option with 1 15/16" spacing seems to be from the Premier Elite line (formerly available at Drum Factory Direct in the States)
• A forum member over at Vintage Drum Forum (latzanimal) says he had luck with lugs from Allstar Drum Co in the USA.

My Buddy's Tama Starclassic Maple

I share a practice space with a great drummer here in Budapest named Bence Bátor.  Bence plays a mid-2000's Tama Starclassic Maple.  Every so often I get to use his kit, and I gotta tell you, I just love it.  It's a standard 10*8, 12*9, 16*14 set-up.  What I love about these drums is that you don't have to hit hard at all, and POW, they just come alive. He just fit the kit with Vintage Emperors, and man, it's just a joy to play. I love my Pearl MHX, but you really have to whack it to get the life out of it. Not the Starclassic Maple. It's a much livelier play.

You can hear Bence and his kit on these tracks.  Some really great sounds on some fine tracks.


On this next one the drums are dampened quite a bit to create a "certain" sound that works quite well even if it doesn't illustrate how well the drums resonate.



He also has an 8 inch deep Tama Bubinga snare which is certainly one of the finest drums I've ever played. I'm pretty sure he's playing it with an Evans HD Dry on the tracks above. Top stuff.

Here's a video I made of his kit using my Tama Mastercraft (Imperialstar) snare from 1983