The "Who Has The Biggest................" thread got me thinking about interesting, cool, and efficient ways to display and store your drum collection.
I really like idrum4fun's way of displaying his snares (see the above mentioned thread for a photo). In my personal opinion, I would rather display my kits set up and playable, rather than just stacking them up. Also, what precautions should one take in regards to UV fading and sunlight exposure?
Right now, all of my kits are in cases and stacked up. I don't have to worry about UV fading, but I would like to display them eventually. Then what do I do with all the cases? (I have a case for each and every single drum-soft bags, no hard cases). I would love to hear your ideas!
I'll share one of mine:
I am also a big cymbal collector (about 225 and growing, with hi-hat pairs counting as "one"). Not necessarily vintage cymbals, just cymbals in general. A great way to display them, and to have easy access to them is to use a fire log rack like shown below. They are fairly inexpensive, and don't take up a ton of room. I keep mine close against a wall, leaving a little room for larger cymbals
They are metal, so you need to cushion them to protect the cymbals. After some trial and error, here's a good solution I found: I wrapped the metal parts that come into contact with the cymbals with pipe insulation, like what is used for hot water lines, water heaters etc. That worked good, but the weight of the cymbals would turn and shift the insulation, and the cymbal edges would flatten out the insulation and tear it as well. So, I wrapped the pipe insulation with duct tape, and that stopped the shifting and tearing, and gave it a little more cushioning too. However, the weight of the cymbals would pierce the duct tape slightly, so the edges of my cymbals would have two small sticky spots on their edges where they would contact the duct tape. So finally, I threw some old bath towels over the duct tape, and that has worked well, and provides even more cushioning. Those fire log racks are great, and they hold a ton of cymbals, and they fit anything 14" and larger. Like I said, I have about 225 cymbals, and that fire log rack is barely half full!
I keep the largest and heaviest cymbals as "bookends", but I keep everything by size. For example on the left side I have my 24's on the outside (with the bells facing the outside), then 21's, 19's etc. and on the right side I have my 22's on the outside (with the bells facing the outside), then my 20's, 18's etc. so that the smaller cymbals are towards the middle. I try to keep it like a "puzzle", so that cymbals within the same size group with the smaller bells "fit" inside the cymbals with larger and deeper bells.
I'm looking forward to some cool idea sharing in this thread!
V
