Hello fellow VDFs,
About ten years ago, while I was playing a gig on a Sunday afternoon, my daughter sniped this puppy off of eBay for me.
1929 Slingerland 5x14 Lavender Pearl Tone Flange Artist Model
The existing literature shows that Lavender was a catalogued Slingerland finish for only one year,1929. This makes sense as this finish does not stand the test of time well at all.
The Shell/interior:
There was a lot of Lavender left under the layers of dirt and grime that had accumulated on the exterior but I needed to implement my full cleaning and polishing regime to bring this out. I am happy with the results as the photos show. The solid mahogany (maple reinforcement rings) interior was in great shape and only needed a basic cleaning. The cloud badge and grommet are both tight and in very good shape.
The hardware:
Ah, the hardware, the Slingerland Artgold hardware... The trick here is to try to salvage as much of the original Artgold finish as possible because restoring Slingerland Artgold is a lot harder than L&L Artgold. The Slingerland Artgold finish (lacquer) has a different shade of gold to deal with. The hardware on this drum was a little rough and I contemplated just leaving it as it was but I couldn't do it, I had to give it the old "Curotto try" and you know my mantra: "rust does not sleep". I started with some Simple Green degreaser to clean off the layer of schmutz and then I used my trusty Cape Cod Polishing Cloths to clean/polish up the tarnished areas. This was followed up with a few coats of Nikolas #2105 Special Gold Colored Lacquer. I concentrated on the affected areas (after cleaning up the rust/tarnish) and was pleasantly pleased (and surprised) with the outcome.
There are some cool artifacts that came along with this drum and were added by a drummer of yesteryear. It was kind of fun to see that some drummer way back when was tweaking with his drum. Admittedly minor stuff but still cool to see. All of the tension rods, tube lugs and 3 pt. strainer had a copious amount of heavy grease that obviously kept things lubricated but was a pain to clean. The slunk head has two pieces of tape at each end to protect the head from the Snappi wire end pieces. Finally, there were 20 "after-market" oversize tension rod washers that our drummer of past used instead of the normal brass tension rod washers. The heads of the tension rods fit perfectly and seat nicely into the "top" of the washers so I decided to leave them as is and include them with the restoration. They look kind of cool. And lest we not forget...the ever present, crooked, dipped to the right drilling for the 3 pt. strainer.
One can see why these Tone Flange Models were short-lived as we all know the frustration of trying to fit a head onto the Tone Flange. Fortunately the original (or at least an of-the-era) batter head and a slunk (bottom) head came with this drum so all that was needed was some James Snappi Wires to round out this restoration. This one took a while but it was worth it.
Enjoy!
Mike Curotto
