Curiously enough, overlap of the tunesafe and H bar rubber (on this 12x8) does not happen on my 8x8, or for that matter on the 13x9. Go figure. The H bar itself is marked 12", with no indicator for depth of shell. Depth is determined, I guess, by the point at which the horizontals of the H are riveted to the vertical. Ideally, and it is to be hoped that, this detail was worked out before the drums were built, but I'm not so sure. And it's unclear whether the lug spacing or the H bar spacing came first.
Then I looked at the fit of the rods through the rims. They are all pressed against the outer edge of their holes, suggesting that pressure is being applied through the rods to the lugs and hence to the rubbers. Sure enough, the lugs are, after a few days, beginning to show signs of going out of parallel again. Maybe I'll have to live with it, because if there is a misalignment between the lugs and the rim, there is not much I can do. This led me to look in more detail at my other toms.
Inspecting the 13x9, its rods are different in design. Because there is more space between the tunesafe and the rim, the rods on the 13 have about a half inch of unthreaded barrel after the step in (like a cinched waist) for rim clearance. The 12 rods are threaded all the way up to the step. Then I looked at the 14x14 floor, and it has the same rods as the 12, whereas the 16x16 has the same rods as the 13. Go figure, since the lugs on a 14x14 drum could have been placed almost anywhere. Isn't a square 14 as standard a drum as you can get? But sure enough, the space between the tunesafes and the rims of the 14 does not leave room for the aesthetic half inch of unthreaded barrel. So there are at least two different style and length rods on Sonor's shelves to account for... what? Are these guys making drums or are they congratulating themselves down at the local beer joint?
I admit, none of this beats Kelly's 15 SQ floor tom with the built in buzz, but it does raise questions about the heralded German engineering prowess at Sonor. And, perhaps, begins to answer certain questions about some of their choices in friends.
Login
Register
FAQ
I could hear Streisand singing "Memories" far off in the distance as I read your closing remarks. 
But anyway, I could not tell from your excellent Moonscape shots if the veneer was pre or post Alpi in terms of vintage, but I admire your attention to detail to say the least. I am glad that the rubber took the brunt of the pressure and not the veneer. I am not so naive so as to assume that Sonor or any of it's more political defenders would ever admit to design flaws, but my guess is that with time and aging rubber, someone must have realized that the combination of the "H" mount and the tunesafe lugs were not a match made in Heaven or even the same decade.
