Bearing edge question...

phil_qc

Senior Member
Hi !

Ok, my 10" tom got less than perfect bearing edges (not totaly flat)
but it tunes perfectly each time I change head and sounds good...
Does it matter ??? I place it on a flat glass table and I can see it's
not totaly flat but a bit wavy... (maybe 1 mm or 1.25 mm of deviation
around it at 1 or 2 places)...

Thanks for your help...

Philippe
 
Ok, my 10" tom got less than perfect bearing edges (not totaly flat)
but it tunes perfectly each time I change head and sounds good...
Does it matter ???
I guess it matters if your deal is taking off the heads of your drums and showing everyone your "perfect" bearing edges. If that's your scene, then it matters. I tend to follow the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" school. Drum sounds good? Check! Drum tunes good? Check! My Rogers project 16" floor tom was badly water damaged. Reso. bearing edge suffered a crack and ply separation. First things first. Get out the wood glue and try to repair as much of the damage as possible. That done, put the drum back together. Now, not trusting just my ears, I tuned the drum, and let 2 of my fellow drum dog brotha's hear it. Between the 3 of us, over 100 years of playing. And we all agreed the drum sounded good. So, no need to cut off the end and have a new bearing edge cut. (which I would have done, had I got thumbs down).
 
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Perfectly flat bearing edges are nice, but there's a lot of hype about them. I have some old Ludwigs that have less-than-perfect bearing edges, and they sound great!

If they sound good to you, then great! It may hurt your resale value if you decide to sell them (and the buyer is looking for perfect bearing edges), but it was said before: "If it's not broke, don't fix it!"
 
Perfectly flat bearing edges are nice, but there's a lot of hype about them. I have some old Ludwigs that have less-than-perfect bearing edges, and they sound great!

If they sound good to you, then great! It may hurt your resale value if you decide to sell them (and the buyer is looking for perfect bearing edges), but it was said before: "If it's not broke, don't fix it!"

I agree, there is a lot of hype about bearing edges. What matters is how the drums sound. No one is going to notice it anyway.
 
Thanks everyone !!

I'm not into the " I need perfect bearing edges" band at all...
I was just wondering if it was acceptable for a drum to have
that kind of deviation at the bearing edge...

Sure there are some more loose lugs at the high spots but I can tune
the drum good enough... I just don't know how a bad bearing edge should
sound but my tom sing for about 3 or 4 sec...

Thanks

Philippe.
 
Update !!

Update !

Ok so I tought that my 10" tom was tuning good but I tuned
both heads to the same pitch and the reso is clear and sing
for verrrry long but the batter head (the bad bearing side) is
dead as it does not sing for more than 1 sec... Also, I took the
mesure of the tom and it's way out of acceptable limit (1/8" out
of round AND at the lowest point of the bearing edge, 2mm out
of flat on the 1/3 of the complete diametre...)

This drum is brand new so I just came back from my dealer who
agree to order me a new tom... Should get it after tomorow...

Thanks for reading...

Philippe
 
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