Restoring Vintage Drums - How To Silence Buzzing Lug Springs

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While restoring a 1964 Slingerland drum kit I ran into a problem I had never experienced before…  Buzzing lug springs.  When we purchased the kit it had all of the original drum heads.  Judging by the amount of filth on said drums, I feel certain that the heads had not been removed in several decades if ever.  

The simple act of removing the tension rods caused the springs to start buzzing inside the lugs.  Unfortunately, we didn't realized this problem until new heads had been installed/tuned and my boy started playing.  The buzzing was horrible.  

Once again, the fellas at Fork's offered a solution. 

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Begin by carefully removing the screws that hold the lug in place.  You will want to do this one lug at a time.  Be especially careful not to mixup the top and bottom screws as they are self threading and will only go back into their original location.

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Here is the inside of the lug and the pesky little spring that was making so much noise.  

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The easiest way to stop the buzzing is to use felt.  The felt should be cut into squares that are the same length as the spring and wide enough to encircle it entirely.  

My best tidbit of advice is this:  Cut enough squares of felt to wrap all of the springs on one side of the drum before you get started.  Once you have used up all of the felt squares you will know that it is time to flip the drum over and repeat the process on the other side of the drum.  

In my experience it is easy to lose count and before you know it you are removing lugs that have already been wrapped.  It doesn't seem like a big deal but old drum hardware can be temperamental, especially when it hasn't been removed in fifty years. You don't want to accidentally sheer off a screw and end up having to replace an entire lug.  

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Wrap each spring in felt as shown in the picture above.  

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Then place the spring back into the lug with the felt seam-side-down.  This will ensure that the felt will never unwrap itself from the spring no matter how hard your kid pounds on his drums.  

Finally, reattach the lug to the drum, again making sure that you put the screws back into the proper location.  Repeat until you have wrapped every spring in felt.