Update on Wac'd Drums

Also I have given many sleepless nights to this, but I feel the only way we will be able to march ahead at full steam is to go out and try and find a large chunk of Capitol money.
I plan on trying some of the local "hometown" banks before I resolve to going to some of the bigger institutions.
If anyone has any suggestions as to how to approach this, what they may be looking for , what I need to provide to them to help facilitate this , PLEASE help.
All of us have pretty much poured everything we have into this already so what we need now is a good infusion of operating money.

.
Great news on everything Gary, from the new finish, to the new site, to the new logo. All great stuff.

I've highlighted the above section of your post because, just like the legal stuff, it's critical to your progress. Things are super tough in the loans market right now, but there's still money to be had. The problem is that the conditions attached can be burdensome compared to a few years ago. Of course, you'll need to nail the amount you need extrapolated from your cash flow forecast. That forecast needs to be both realistically conservative yet positive. Do not ask for a range of amounts. That shows indecision. Be sure to justify the sales volumes by relating them to specific investements, customer estimates, and activities. Include all monies invested to date & by whom. This is important to show shared belief & risk.

High street banks are a good place to start. It's important that you have a direct contact with the investement manager. Do not accept any deal that requires invoice factoring. It's expensive & deeply unpopular with commercial customers. Many banks believe it adds security to their investement, so it's popular, beware! Also, once you've got their interest (under no circumstances before), check out their protocols concerning withdrawl of funding. You don't want to be left in cashflow hell just because some corporate decision puts you in the wrong catagory according to their latest memo! Conditions leading to funding withdrawl should be defined under default sections, & remain exclusively within that framework.

Venture capitol is another way to go, but there's no such thing as a free lunch. Return expectations are often high. Management fees are also high, & tie up a lot of your management resource. They're generally intefereing bastards with little understanding of the business sector. Read, only go this route if all else fails.

Hope these bits help Gary. Good luck man, I'm rooting for ya!
 
Gary
it's good to hear the legals have been sorted. I'm going through the very early stages now, so I have some joyous experiences to look forward to.

I haven't even started to think about the financial aspects yet, so can't provide anything other than to wish you all the best and hope you succeed as I sure would like to build a few more snares with the Wac'd lugs.

I was happy to read about the nickel plating finish - should be a very tasty look!
 
A few months ago Gary sent me a set of his lugs with the instructions as follows.
He said, "Bob, have fun and experiment"
I did just that!
I purchased a vintage Ludwig maple 3 ply 5x14 shell on eBay for about $30.
I filled the holes from the original hardware with wood filler and I sanded the shell.
I also bought some 10 hole hoops and a throw-off from Gibraltar.
I bought a Puresound 24 strand brass snare strainer.

Here is what I came up with.
I have ordered a really cool wrap for this drum which hasn't come in yet.
I will post more pics shortly when I have finished the drum.

I love this drum. I have spent most of the day fooling around with it.
Gary's lugs work great!
I can't find one thing that I don't like about his system.
The tuning is a breeze.
The bottom head will equalize and be at a higher tension from the batter head all on its own.
I can quickly tune on the fly while playing just by turning the top tension rods a slight bit.
This drum always has a fully open sound. The harder that I hit it the more that it projects. It will not choke!!!
It is also ultra sensitive at low volumes.
When I play a rimshot it sounds almost like a metal shelled drum.

I believe that I now have a $500 drum for less that $200 dollars.

Thanks Gary, I love you man, and I love my new drum!
 

Attachments

  • 0722011625.jpg
    0722011625.jpg
    35.5 KB · Views: 541
  • 0723011310.jpg
    0723011310.jpg
    43.5 KB · Views: 544
  • 0723011311.jpg
    0723011311.jpg
    40.1 KB · Views: 546
Last edited:
A few months ago Gary sent me a set of his lugs with the instructions as follows.
He said, "Bob, have fun and experiment"
I did just that!
I purchased a vintage Ludwig maple 3 ply 5x14 shell on eBay for about $30.
I filled the holes from the original hardware with wood filler and I sanded the shell.
I also bought some 10 hole hoops and a throw-off from Gibraltar.
I bought a Puresound 24 strand brass snare strainer.

Here is what I came up with.
I have ordered a really cool wrap for this drum which hasn't come in yet.
I will post more pics shortly when I have finished the drum.

I love this drum. I have spent most of the day fooling around with it.
Gary's lugs work great!
I can't find one thing that I don't like about his system.
The tuning is a breeze.
The bottom head will equalize and be at a higher tension from the batter head all on its own.
I can quickly tune on the fly while playing just by turning the top tension rods a slight bit.
This drum always has a fully open sound. The harder that I hit it the more that it projects. It will not choke!!!
It is also ultra sensitive at low volumes.
When I play a rimshot it sounds almost like a metal shelled drum.

I believe that I now have a $500 drum for less that $200 dollars.

Thanks Gary, I love you man, and I love my new drum!
Very nice work Bob. Love your description of the sound. Looking forward to the finished pictures, but the drum already looks superb with Gary's lugs in place.
 
Thanks Gary and KIS,
I put a Drum Dial on the drum just to see what it tensioned out at.
The batter single ply coated head measured about 86
and the thin bottom head measured about 82.
That is what I normally tune a snare to with conventional lugs.
A snare bottom max's out at about 82 on my dial.
I havent even put good heads on this drum yet.
These are just Chinese Remo's.
I will put good heads on when I wrap it.
I think that a higher quality snare bottom will take a slight bit more torque.
 
Here are the pics of the completed drum in Diamond Plate wrap.
The wrap was about $20 shipped from eBay.
 

Attachments

  • 0725011850.jpg
    0725011850.jpg
    48.7 KB · Views: 515
  • 0725011849.jpg
    0725011849.jpg
    55.9 KB · Views: 539
Thats a beautiful snare!. Oh, not the diamond plate one, the black Force one in the back......JK.

No, I really love diamond plate and that snare is beautiful!

I wanna get a diamond plate reso head for my kick (a good one) but I dont know if anyone will make me one with a chrome Sonor logo.
 
The snare in the background is a 9 ply maple Special Edition 5.5x14 in piano black.
I really like that one too.

Thanks Guys!
 
A few months ago Gary sent me a set of his lugs with the instructions as follows.
He said, "Bob, have fun and experiment"
I did just that!
I purchased a vintage Ludwig maple 3 ply 5x14 shell on eBay for about $30.
I filled the holes from the original hardware with wood filler and I sanded the shell.
I also bought some 10 hole hoops and a throw-off from Gibraltar.
I bought a Puresound 24 strand brass snare strainer.

Here is what I came up with.
I have ordered a really cool wrap for this drum which hasn't come in yet.
I will post more pics shortly when I have finished the drum.

I love this drum. I have spent most of the day fooling around with it.
Gary's lugs work great!
I can't find one thing that I don't like about his system.
The tuning is a breeze.
The bottom head will equalize and be at a higher tension from the batter head all on its own.
I can quickly tune on the fly while playing just by turning the top tension rods a slight bit.
This drum always has a fully open sound. The harder that I hit it the more that it projects. It will not choke!!!
It is also ultra sensitive at low volumes.
When I play a rimshot it sounds almost like a metal shelled drum.

I believe that I now have a $500 drum for less that $200 dollars.

Thanks Gary, I love you man, and I love my new drum!

OK, I'm not gonna get all sentimental... but I know exactly what you mean. Since putting together my snare with Gary's lugs I haven't payed another. I absolutely love being able to change the sound between songs when playing gigs. I own a Sleishman kit and also find that these things can't be choked, so wonder if 'choke resistance' is a feature of free floating shells.
 
OK, I'm not gonna get all sentimental... but I know exactly what you mean. Since putting together my snare with Gary's lugs I haven't payed another. I absolutely love being able to change the sound between songs when playing gigs. I own a Sleishman kit and also find that these things can't be choked, so wonder if 'choke resistance' is a feature of free floating shells.
As far as I can figure, The heads drive each other.
The batter pulls the reso tighter when it is struck.
This drum takes on a life of its own when you buzz roll on it.
I learn something new about it whenever I play it.
I don't have words!
One just has to try it and see.
 
Wow! You guys have me blushing with happiness right now ! Thanks so much !

Just a short update as to whats going on.

We are officially a LLC company now. Work has begun on the business plan to take to the bank, hopefully they won't be to bummed out with recent tank of the dow. I should have the plan done within 30 days. I wish it was tomorrow but the person helping me unfortunately has a job so he helps in his spare time.

Machine shop had a few issues , nothing big , but none the less has pushed back the production.

In the mean time I have been busy working on a shell that I believe has never been invented before. I'm still working on a couple different prototypes to see how far I can push the design but in a nut shell this is what I've got.
I've designed a shell that works with the lugs that allows you to reverse the shell for two completely different sounds.
One way gives you a very dry sound, sort of like when people throw on their wallets or moon gel , to get that muffled sound. Many of the metal and gospel players seem to like this sound. And you keep all of the volume of the drum without the BIG holes that some makers use. Rimshots are cannon shots!

Now remove the head and flip the shell over and you have your wide open , ton of resonance sound that many others like.
The interesting thing is that the drum retains all of its sensitivity regardless of which way you have the shell. And as Bob and Harry found out, you can't choke it, even with this shell design.

Its been out being played for the past couple of weeks by the business partners and each of them has been floored by it. One of them has already dragged it into to his studio to record with it.
I'll have much more on this as soon as I get all of the feedback in and adjustments are made.

With the things that are happening beyond my control , this just keeps my excitement level high!

Gary

p.s. Awesome looking snare Bob. I'm so glad that its working out for you and for Harry.
 
Gary, the innovations just keep coming! And it looks like you're putting Shadow Drums out of business before we even get started...
 
First, Thanks everyone !

Now , AAARRRRGGGHHHH !!! No I haven't been around much lately because I have been enjoying myself on some nice island somewhere enjoying the fruits of a lot of hard work , but because two weeks ago I had a lower back sprain and wasn't supposed to move from my bed ( yeah right ! , like I'm gonna lay in bed for a week) and then this past week (friday) I was down from oral surgery .. what else could go wrong ? , well let me tell you, while I was down I got a call from the manufacturing side excited to tell me they ran the first batch of 100 lugs. Yeah, I'm excited to , until I see them and I knew that a couple of the dimesions were off ! So now that I'm getting back on my feet I have to sit down and discuss where the mistakes are. Good part is that its just a few clicks on the program and we're back in business. The bad part is we have 100 lugs that aren't 100% correct.

So those are the bad things that have happened, but there have been a couple of positive things in the last couple of weeks that I've been down.
First is that we were contacted by a third but very large drum company interested in using the lugs. After we agreed to retro-fit a couple of drums for them to test they called the next day and got us those drums. We will be having a meeting with them this week at one of their endorsers clinics , so who knows what will happen, but I will keep you updated as many good things could come from this.

We have also been continuing the work on the "Flipshell" concept and we think we finally have it nailed down. Working the concept into a wood shell has been a little more perplexing than working it into a metal shell.

And finally we have the design pretty much done on the "multi -hoop" . The design looks conventional enough that it can easily fit among the typical hoops offered , but yet different enough that you will have to do a double take. With the way things have progressed so far with the lugs , I won't even try and give you a time line as to when they will be available but they will come , That I'm 100% sure of !

So instead of looking down on the past few weeks, I'm still looking up , and still very excited about it all . ( its just a little more work than I thought it would be, but I'm learning from all these lows ! )

Take Care,
Gary
 
Glad to hear that things are looking up Gary and I'm sorry to hear about your back and the bad batch of lugs.
I know the feeling when your back is out. Mine is out right know. I simply bent down to pick up a hairbrush that I dropped and one of my discs slipped out last Wed morn. I was going to brush the 12 hairs that are left on my head!
I am still a bit sore but I am getting better.

I am still lovin my snare. I play it everyday.
I am thinking of trying an Evans 500 weight bottom head on it to see what that does.
I love to experiment with it.
 
Heres the lastest from the front line!

After much discussion between partners these are the following changes.

1. We have decided we will not be pushing sales of anything until 2012. Clearly the end of 2011 is fast approaching and the Holidays are right around the corner, things would be slowing down anyways. I think its more important for everyone involved to concentrate on taking their money and spending it where it needs to be spent during this time of the year.

2. We have decided not to put the Bass Station into production. It was decided that it would be more practical to mount standard style spurs on the Bass drums. They will be mounted very simular to the way the snare strainer is mounted. The spurs will be pretty straight forward but will be produced by us inhouse.

3. We will not be using any type of wingbolt or wingnut on the floor tom leg brackets. We have two types of designs on the table with one being a push and release type button. It will come down to which design proves more dependable.

4. The Flip Shell is in its make or break stage. The results have been very good, but its just not where it needs to be. I made some changes this past week , so soon we will know whether its a success or just simply a novelty.

So the lugs are set, there are no changes to be made. I might "leak" some kits for sale before the end of the year, but its hard to say .

Others things of importance- A friend and I went to a Design& Manufacturing show this past week and came home with a ton of new ideas! Some of the processes such as Photo Chemical Machining were unbelievable! So much to see but so little time.

But heres the kicker of the whole day ! Never thinking for one moment I would see anything music related, let alone drum related , we stumbled on a manufactuer that specialized in aluminum work. Well stuck way in the back of their display happened to be a drum shell. After further talking with the President of the company, I found out the shell I was holding was a Ludwig Acrolite shell and his company has been producing the metal shells for the last 50+ years. So after further discussions with him it was determined that we would carry on further talks outside of the show. We had discussed what would have to be changed as not to infringe on Ludwig but other than that the skys the limit.

So thats just some of what has been happening with us. I included a few pics on some of the prototype things we have going on. The snare is what I decided to call the 'Rimshot' snare. Weighing right around 14lbs and very loud. Although the use of an automotive rim isn't new , this snare is what got us into doing the flipshell. This one you can flip to get two distinctly different snare sounds. The other is the stationary butt plate, designed to match the stops on the lugs.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_6728.jpg
    IMG_6728.jpg
    208.6 KB · Views: 437
  • IMG_1895.jpg
    IMG_1895.jpg
    215 KB · Views: 414
  • IMG_0119 (1).jpg
    IMG_0119 (1).jpg
    124 KB · Views: 412
Back
Top