The Drawn Brass Lug
Rogers Drums started making a lug called the drawn brass
sometime in the early 1940s after replacing tube lugs and Gretsch rocket lugs on
the high end drums.
The first drawn brass model had a large "R"
in the middle of each lug. That design was replaced by a plain middle area. That
lug, and its successors, picked up a nickname. These lugs are called "coffin
lugs". Technically, we see them mostly on Eagle badged drums.
The
second version, about 1958 also on Eagle badged drums as well as on the early
Script logo drums- there are 3 types of scripts- used a ridge down the middle.
All of these lugs had mounting holes 2 1/4 inches apart. This was the birth of
the drawn brass lug known as the "B&B" or "Bread and Butter".
The nickname came about because the lugs looked like little loaves of bread. At
that point, remember the bass, snare and tom lugs were all the same size.
Subsequent shorter lugs for tom toms and snare drums came into existence by
1962.
I think the look of the drawn brass lug is very distinctive. The
problem is that the lugs crack, split and have their threaded tubes break off
when tension is applied. And that's bad. I have seen Slingerland lugs on Roger's
shells, import lugs used on them and I have seen people try to use cracked lugs
with epoxy holding them together.
The only tragedy occurs when you find
someone redrilling a Roger's shell to use other hardware. Even Rogers subsequent
great lugs- The Beavertails- don't retrofit. The good news is that reissued lugs
are out there and more are coming. When that happens on a reasonable scale,
watch those values shoot up more.
If you'd like to read more about
Rogers Drums, I invite you to order an autographed copy of my book,
"The Great American Drums". It's $ 19.95 plus
shipping. | |
