Die Cast hoop slightly warped

basset52

Senior Member
Hi All, I recently purchased a secondhand set of Tama starclassic birch/bubinga drums. I bought new heads for all the drums as the old ones were not in good nick. In the process of fitting the new heads I checked all the bearing edges and hoops. All OK except one of the diecast hoops on the 12" tom was very slightly warped. I measured the gap with a feeler gauge ( I used to be a mechanical fitter) and it was . 03" , or .76mm at its widest point. ( I used a marble slab)The drum tunes up OK with no different effort required with any of the lugs. My sense is it does not seem to have any adverse effect on the tuning etc so not to worry about it, but its been nagging at me a little bit. Should I get a new hoop? What would you folk do?
Cheers
 
Wouldn't bother unless it affects tuning or shell in some way. Doubt it will do anything to drum unless you crank it super high. I've had drums that were out of round etc, and as long as you take your time tuning them they sound just about fine. Maybe take some recordings or measurements of everything you can and check up every couple weeks to see if anythings happening.
 
Most die cast hoops flex more than you'd think. The common perception is, because they're typically heavy, they must therefore be strong. That's not the case at all. The small level of warp in your hoop should be easily taken up on tensioning in all but very low tension applications, & it's not sufficiently bad to noticeably hinder tuning or cause any lasting issue.
 
Equal turns at each lug doesn't necessarily mean equal pitch at each lug. If it did, then given a flat hoop and a centered head, you could finger tighten all the rods, give each rod the same number of turns with a drum key, and have the same pitch at each lug, but that is rarely, if ever, the case. With that in mind, the likelihood of your hoop being perfectly flat once a drum is in tune is not very high anyway. As long as it doesn't affect tuning, an imperfection of less than a millimeter is nothing.

If your OCD takes over and you just HAVE to get the hoop flat again, figure out which way it's bent and then tweak it a bit by placing your hands on the high points and gently bend the hoop over the edge of a counter top with the low points lined up with the edge of the counter, checking for flatness on a flat surface after each nudge. Best to do this gradually in small increments as it doesn't take as much force as you might think to start imparting a bend in a hoop.
 
I would give it an easy twist just to settle my nerves, and then put it on a reso side of the tom to minimize any tone variance.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I appreciate it . Reassuring for me. I will now put it on the reso side and forget about it.
Cheers
 
As you have most likely found by now, the reso and batter side hoops are not identical. That is, if your toms have the starcast mounts, as the mont attches to the top hoop.
 
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Die cast hoops are made of zinc, not steel.

DC hoops should not be considered stronger/stiffer than thick, rolled and stamped steel hoops. Zinc has a muting effect sonically, tap a DC hoop then tap a steel hoop, zinc absorbs vibrations more effectively than steel.
 
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