Ever notice how close a Sling lug is next to a Gretsch?

Gretsch came out with their new lug in 1950..Sling came out with Sound Kings in 55.....Gee....lets see....wait 5 years..do a close copy?...Sounds like Bud.....

While we're on the subject of design... one of my pet peeves is; nobody is reproducing the bearing edges that George Way used on his outstanding sounding drums! Why not? Not even DW who carries on the Camco tradition uses those bearing edges that were a hallmark of the drums. The drums, lugs and hardware that George Way designed and built are light years ahead of the rest on every level, yet -no one- today reproduces those perfectly profiled bearing edges that lend such a wonderful sound to the drums.

John

W&A had some nice design work, but more in the mechanical arena, ie: hi-hats, snare stands, etc. They used the big 3 lugs....marko

I feel ya Purdie. 45s have their place, but it's weird to me that today you often have to go boutique to get any shell contact with your drums!

Everything's louder these days, bigger faster stronger louder lol. Maybe for the most part [largest market] round is just too quiet right out of the box.

But wait don't C&C do vintage edges? Anyway I agree with Chicago Dave this is a cool discussion about the lug design. Definitely wonder about that stuff myself.

Mitch

I like lugs... ;) LOL ! But seriously, great and interesting subject..

My top 3 favourite lugs are the Gretsch lug, followed by any vintage Ludwig Lugs, Then those lovely Radioking Lugs.

4th and 5th for me are George Ways' Turrets and Rogers Beavertails.

An important 6th for me are vintage Premier Lugs. BTW for me they made the best looking cymbal stands ever. The 70's lokfast design was gorgeous.

George Way....Leedy.....In my opinion, the most attractive drum lugs.....ever.

I wonder why so many of the cheapo Asian-made drums from the 1950's and 1960's copied the Slingerland Sound King lugs. I realize that there were two companies (Star and Pearl) that made drums with hundreds of different stencil brand names. I wonder why they chose the Slingerland design because these manufacturers could have copied any lug design. Have you ever noticed all of those bongo drums that show up on eBay and Craigs List that claim to be Slingerlands? They all had peel off stickers on them when they were new that had any one of hundreds of brand names on the stickers. They were all painted red on the inside, and had head sizes that could not be replaced in music stores. The cheapo copiers even made cheap copies of the Slingerland Stick Saver hoops.

I think this was touched on in an earlier thread, awhile back - someone opined that the other big 3 would have gone after them for copyright infringement, but Slingerland was lax on that kind of thing.....?

Mitch