Racks and stands and Clamps – oh my!
Racks and stands – that vital part of a drum set or percussion rig that keeps it all together and in the right place but often gets neglected when it comes to maintaining and repairing. Threads will get stripped or tight when full of dusty road grime and it is easy to extend their life with simple, regular maintenance. Avoid over tightening of any wingnut or clamp and consider memory locks for the hardware taking considerable stress due to weight or heavy hitting. An future article will discuss memory locks in more detail.
My personal routine includes cleaning and oiling ANY threads with out fail when its time for a cleaning. The regularity will depend on how dirty your instrument gets. Also the roll/split pins that attach cymbal boom arms together will loosen over time and cause a wobble to the arm. Tap them out with a small punch and replace with sufficiently tight roll pins.
When it comes to my rack I check and replace any damaged rubber gaskets that are on the older Dixon clamps I have. Also the rack bar itself can use a good clean once in a while to ease the sliding of clamps to adjust stuff. I mark a lot of my boom arms with a black sharpie to aid in quickly getting all the proper angles when setting up. These will eventually wear off so I’ll re-mark any that are faded. The ink is easily removed with rubbing alcohol to clean up or change. I find this minimizes my use of memory locks which adds weight and can be pricey.
When I gave everything on my rack a test tap and found that most any chrome tube has a bit of ring I experimented and stuffed sliced up lengths of those kid’s foam pool noodles and inserted them into my rack tubes.
The difference under the microphones was very notable. There was a certain high “honk” to the kit that was now removed with this simple method. The foam is light weight and adds no detectable difference whatsoever. When constructing these make sure to cut the strips so they fit snugly into the tube so the outward pressure acts to both mute the ring and keep it in place.
So now I am considering doing the same to all the smaller boom arms and cymbal tubes with the black foam pipe insulation found at any hardware store. Its not very expensive and a one time investment for a worth while cause. Who doesn’t want their kit to sound the best it can?
In conclusion I would like to mention that in the 40+ years of touring and recording with my Tama Artstars (still my primary kit) I have had to replace only 2 wing bolts on the floor tom’s leg clamps. This is due to my past work experiences in both mechanical and parts department sectors of the auto industry. It made me very maintenance driven and also has me saving every nut, bolt, tube and chunk of anything that may come in handy (one day). And they usually do…
Look for more creative ideas in the upcoming article: Hardware Customizing – how to get creative with those extra parts and pieces.
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