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Premier 1965 kit - NOS heads?

Posts: 2713 Threads: 555

A recently got in touch with a friend that I haven't seen for almost 50 years. We were in high school together and he was my first drum teacher.

He sent me these small file photos of his drums. The very set I took lessons on in 1965! He quit playing for about 30 years and started playing again a few years ago.

He said getting heads is a bit tricky as the floor and side tom need metric heads which he can special order from REMO. A regular head from Remo fits on the snare - it came with the kit and is a Royal Ace. He did manage to squeeze an Evans onto the tom.

I thought I'd ask here to see if there is a source for NOS Premier heads.

These are cell phone photos he took today and will be sending higher res ones some other time. Beauties huh.

Posted on 11 years ago
#1
Posts: 164 Threads: 28

nice kit. I have a vintage premier, that needs pre-int heads as well. I am over in Australia. I recently ordered some coated ambassadors and only waited a bit over a week. there are a couple of shops in Melbourne that carry them and they come in more than pinstripe and ambassadors now. there is a guy in Sydney that does custom heads in kangaroo hide as well...www.kentvilledrums.com.au

Posted on 11 years ago
#2
Posts: 802 Threads: 149

These are the perils of pre-international sized heads. I have a 1957 Sonor Melodie kit that uses 'em. What a PITA!! Remo stocks "some" metric sizes...problem was in the late 1950s, there were many different metric sizes.

There IS a way around it tho:

Lets say you have a Metric tom tom, which is 12.5 inches across. A normal 12 inch head is too small, a 13 is too big and wont fit inside the 12.5 hoop. Heres what you do:

Insert some rubber washers under each lug to increase the distance from the lug body to the shell...this is called the "splay". You then buy a normal 13 inch head AND 13 inch rim, and with the increased "splay" the head should now fit on the drum and you can tune it.

Its a cheap way out, and I am told that in the late 60s, drummers who owned metric sets did just that. If it worked in 1967 it will work today!

Posted on 11 years ago
#3
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