Beverley Script Badge Drums

Every so often we buy what looks like a hunk of junk and try to turn it into a playable kit -- or even a nice kit. A few months ago (autumn 2015) I bought a Frankenstein kit consisting of two "script badge" era Beverley drums (pre-international birch with earlier lugs, 12x8, 16x16) and one later Blue Badge era (mahogany, later lugs, 20x14).

SPOILER ALERT: If you want to see the end result now, scroll to the bottom and then come back up here. Main idea: These old Beverley pre-international drums are fantastic.

Also, before I get started, I want to correct some misinformation that's out there on the net: Beverley made Pre-International sizes. Don't let anyone tell you they didn't. They did.

So back to FRANKENSTEIN, as I call him/her/it/them. Here's what the drums looked like...

Notice the following major detractors:

• Horrible sticky-foil "wrap"
• Later B&H era Beverley badges
• Extra holes in kick (typical of Premier and Beverley that originally had disappearing spurs, particularly when on a mahogany shell)

But also a few items that gave me hope:

• Lugs seemed to be in nice shape
• Chrome generally looking tolerable
• Original slotted rods and kick rods
• No extra holes in toms 
• Original "tall boy" hoops in decent condition

When I took possession, I quickly peeled back the horrible foil "wrap" to find shells in OK condition, but covered -- COVERED -- in nasty glue.

To make a very long story short, this crap did NOT want to come off easily. I had to use gel-type paint remover to get it off, but the shells remained stained.

The birch drums fared a bit better:

But the mahogany had quite a bit of glue stuck in its deeper grain:

Some outer ply came off on the floor tom. Notice the dark middle ply. MAHOGANY. Pretty obvious that this is a birch-mahogany-birch drum. That made me pretty happy. I ended up filling the "holes" pretty easily with wood paste. I've read that wood paste can crack on drums. Hopefully it will hold up. I'll report back if it doesn't.

Once I finally got the drums cleaned and sanded, I had to decide how to finish them. Since the drums are mixed (birch toms, mahogany kick) I couldn't really oil them (no natural finish). The most obvious thing to do would have been re-wrap. But as you probably know, decent wrap is expensive. I promised myself not to spend too much on this job, so I ruled out wrap.

Instead I opted to use natural SHELLAC mixed with BRONZE POWDER. You see, I had some materials leftover from my recent clean-up of my Golden Sun Premier B303, so I thought I would use them on Frankenstein.

The process is pretty simple: You simply dissolve the bronze powder in the shellac and start brushing it on. You have to make sure the powder is evenly dissolved, and you have to use a quality brush: The finish is only as good as your brush.

This is an intermediate stage. Notice it's still pretty ugly.

I applied many layers - probably about six. I did not sand between layers since I found that too much material came off during sanding, even with 600 grain.

The final stage was to spray with Talens Acrylic Varnish (Glossy 114). This gave the drums a touch of shine and smoothed over a few of the imperfections. Overall I ended up with a pleasant finish. We'll see how it holds up. The other day a bandmate hit the kick with a mic stand and the drum came out unscathed. So far so good.

Here are some shots iof the finished kit. Pardon the mismatched kick hoops. I used what I had around.

And here's an original badge as well as some that I printed with a 3D printer. They look alright, but aren't quite up to my standards. The main problem is finding a way to fix them to the drum. I need to make some time to visit a screw and nail shop. I'm sure there's a solution.

Hayman Vibrasonic 2221 Pacemaker in Gold Ingot

A few months ago I took delivery of a Hayman Vibrasonic kit in Gold Ingot. Three pieces: 13-16-20.

My research tells me it's a 2221 Pacemaker (sans snare) with a 20 x 13 kick (yes, 13", with 8 lugs) and a Hayman brass badge (not George Hayman), dating it to 1969-1973.

It needed some work and was missing some parts, but I've polished up the chrome and badges, painted the hoops, and bought some missing bits. I'm not claiming to be an expert, but here are my thoughts on Hayman drums after taking this kit apart and making it nice again.


Shells

• The shells appear to be birch and are among the thinnest I've seen. 
• The Vibrasonic coating on the floor and kick are crazed, but not the 13.
• The kit has no extra holes anywhere, with original baseball bat dampeners. 
• In some places the lugs have worn into the outer ply a bit, but it doesn't seem to have caused any problem. I considered adding rubber gaskets between lug and drum, but had trouble finding any that would fit. 
• The floor tom had some splitting at the bottom reinforcement ring. As most of you probably know, it's not a big job to glue a re-ring, so it was easy to fix.  
• The toms are slightly over-sized, but not out of round. Some standard heads go on the toms, but Aquarian American Vintage have proved to be the best solution for ease of tuning.
• UPDATE: I bought some Evans Level 360 G1 heads and they went on easily and tuned up in a flash. I'm thrilled since now I have some flexibility choosing heads.
• The badge is slightly loose on the 13"
• I polished the brass badges for many, many minutes each with automotive chrome polish

Regarding crazing, I got some nice info from a UK drum builder who asked to remain nameless. Here's what he told me in an email:

The paint Hayman used to use is a thick polyurethane and sets very hard like cement. 8 out of 10 Hayman drums do crack inside as the paint does not move with the shell (it was a stupid idea -- I told Ivor Arbiter at the time). If I was you i would just live with it. These are great old drums. 

Wrap

• The gold ingot wrap is looking fine for its age. A few scuffs here and there, but nothing deep, and no splitting. 
• It's a high quality wrap, I'd say. It has indeed held up to the test of time. Interesting that some folks on Vintage Drum Forum commented that Hayman wraps don't hold up. This one really looks great, as these unedited photos will show. 
• First I washed them with unscented soap and water with a cotton t-shirt, and then I polished them using Turtle Wax dashboard cleaner.

Hoops and rims

• Kick: I had to sand and repaint the original kick drum hoops and glue the gold ingot inlay in a few places. I used standard glossy black paint from the hardware store. Nothing fancy, and I know I'd get a better finish with spray paint or an air gun. Maybe I'll get around to that later. 
• The kit came with original rims for the 13 and 16, so I have non-original replacements (Gibraltar) for the reso side. Hayman toms are standard sizes (if slightly oversized), so any rims will do.
• The Hayman rims are solid and similar in weight to modern Gibraltar. Certainly a stronger build than Beverley rims from the same era.
• I cleaned the original rims with vinegar and aluminum foil. It really melted away the rust. 

Tension Rods, Lugs
Probably the strangest thing about the Hayman Vibrasonic is the tension rods.

2221 Pacemaker - Thumbs up!

• Hayman rods are slotted, like most vintage UK drums, but smaller gauge (smaller around) than other rods out there. The kit only came with top heads, so I was missing some rods and few swivel nuts. I had to buy original replacement rods and a few nuts from the UK at somewhat of a premium. I found this easier than swapping out for modern-size swivel nuts and rods. Also, I wanted to try to keep the kit as original as possible. 
• I only had eight original kick rods and claws, so I used modern replacements (Cannon). That was easy enough since the kick swivel nuts are standard size. Go figure. 
• The lugs are a bit scraped with some pitting. I cleaned them up with vinegar and aluminum foil and got them into pretty good shape.  
• Hayman lugs/inserts are the old spring-loaded kind. I decided to pack a piece of foam in each lug to prevent noises (like used in cheap mattresses or furniture). I'm not in love with the spring since the nut has a tendency to push down when you don't expect it to. But it's not really a big issue.

Spurs

With custom logo and Pearl suspension feet on Danmar Ludwig spurs

The kit did not come with kick spurs, so I ordered 9.5mm Danmar Ludwig replacement spurs. They are actually a tiny bit short for the Hayman, so I extended them using Pearl suspension feet. Solid as a rock now, with a little help from a Gibraltar kick anchor just to be sure.







The Knuckle Cruncher 
Some call it the Knuckle Buster, some the Knuckle Cruncher. But indeed, now I see why the infamous Hayman tom holder has such a bad reputation. As others have described, it's a strange device with "a mass of joints, thumbscrews and ring screws mounted on a consolette-style rail."  It looks great, but it is indeed a pain in the butt and doesn't allow much flexibility in positioning.  I'm glad I have one since it adds some value to the kit. But I gotta say, it's not the easiest beast to use.

Sound - VERY Quick Demo
Here is a very quick demo made in the living room of my apartment at low volume - out of consideration for the neighbors. Recorded with a single Audio-Technica ATR 25 stereo mic with a Canon HD10 camera. While the video is short, it demonstrates the nice warm tone you get with the American Vintage heads.



Dating the kit
I'm no expert by any means, but evidence I've collected from various sources online suggests that my kit is from 1969, and likely a transitional kit from George Hayman to simply Hayman.

Later Hayman kick claw/rod

Early Hayman kick claw/rod

For example, it seems Hayman kick drum claws and tension rods looked like this (left) in the early days. Then later they switched to a more modern Z-shape (right). An expert has told me that the claws on the left were on George Hayman kits. But mine is certainly simply a Hayman (no George on the badges).

The Hayman (no George) brass badge patent numbers clearly say 1968 and 1969.  According to wikipedia, "each round badge on a Hayman drum has a patent number - giving the year of manufacture within the patent number."

(claw photos from eBay, thanks to Pete's Drum World)

Another piece of evidence putting my kit to the first years of Hayman drums is shell crazing. It seems earlier Hayman kits tend to craze more than later, and mine is rather crazed (the floor tom most of all, but also the kick). Allegedly it took them time to perfect the paint.


History of the kit
All I know is that it arrived from Glasgow via a nice guy named Davy who used to play with a Glaswegian outfit called Baby Chaos.  You can see Davy on the exact same kit on a few of their tracks on YouTube.
Here are some shots from before the clean-up. Luckily that sticker came off the kick with ease.

Rogers Holiday: The slippery road to becoming a vintage junkie

A few weeks ago we had a monster jam session with a handful of guitar players, two bassists, and three drummers playing on two kits. Just for kicks. One kit was the Ludwig Maple Classic mentioned in an earlier post. And the other was a Rogers Holiday that has set me down the path to becoming a vintage junkie. That's all it took - one jam session with a quality Dayton-era Rogers Holiday with a 22" kick and I became addicted to beavertail lugs and bread-and-butter and speckled paint versus smooth and Cleveland versus Dayton all that other wonderfully geeky stuff associated with Rogers Holiday. Yes, the kit was THAT good. Frankly, it blew the Ludwig out of the room. At least the kick.

So here's a summary:

• The kick absolutely blows away any other kick I've played recently. 
• It's got a clear Powerstroke 3 with no other muffling, and it just roars. 
• Open yet punchy. 
• Deep but with attack.  
• And the 14" depth makes it lively and easy to play compared to the trendier 18" depth kicks you'll find on most modern kits.
• The toms don't exactly sing. 
• Both the 13*9 with Coated Ambassabor and 16*16 with Coated Emperor have a short sound. They are not dead, but they are not lively. 
• Naturally other tunings could change their character, but I'm confident that a vintage Rogers is not the kit for someone looking for a lively sound with lots of high-end attack. 
• In a way the toms really remind me of my Pearl MHX, though my Pearl is somewhat more resonant, with more attack.

Yep, I still love Rogers Holiday!  Such a fine kit, fully deserving of its status as a legend.

I want a Holiday!
Holiday in the Sun?
Holiday in Waikiki?
Nope.
Rogers Holiday.
So fantastic!