 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I am your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Jeff Stern of Stern tanning co Jeff welcome to the show. Thank you Yeah, so this episode was recommended by mr. Bill Ryder who was a fan of the show who sent in Your info and was just telling me, you know, hey, you should do an episode on tanning So Jeff is I'll say it upfront not a drummer, but he obviously has a lot of skill in tanning and Making these, you know natural animal skin drum heads, which we're gonna learn all about today so Let's maybe start with as a non-drummer. How did you get into making drum heads? well so my background is that I'm a CPA and I Started practicing in like 81 and then in 1990 I was bored with it. I worked for a national firm And I approached my dad who had was a semi retired still had a tannery working part-time in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin and I had worked there during the summer. It's when I was a kid and thought I would I Thought maybe we could get it going again. The the big old tannery So I approached him and he was all excited and he was I think like 75 or something when I approached them and so then we started up and we started building up the sheepskin business and In 2001 I got a call from mr. Polanski who was the owner of United Rawhide saying telling me that he was deciding to Who's either gonna sell his business or sell his real estate? separately or try to do or set or do both and I said, well, you know, whatever you decide just let me know and then later on he called me and said, you know I've decided I'm gonna sell the real estate because it's worth a lot and I have some sheepskin equipment here. I know you're a sheepskin tannery So and at that time I was buying up sheepskin equipment all over the country You know is because I never knew for sure what we'd be doing next and I thought I would just keep accumulating some Used equipment and I usually found a spot for it in the my factory and then And then like a couple of minutes later, you know, we set something up and I went down to look at the equipment and And then we got talking and things had fallen through for his other plans for Parsing out the business. So he said you want to provide the business and I thought well You know, it will fit in I don't have to do a lot to move it into my factory since we already have all the water and all these You know that type of stuff that you need to run a tannery and handle hides so, you know, that's how it started and We got to talking and I went down to see his place and I bought the sheepskin equipment And then it went further and then I ended up buying his little business Which had already he had already sold off little parts of it and cutting guys and things like that to other customers, but The the core of it which wasn't I didn't eat much. I took a fleshing machine and unharing machine from him and You know, and then we then we get started Wow So I want to interject here a little bit and we like Jeff and I talked about this before I'm gonna read now a little bit more from from Rebeats.com which is Rob Cook the Chicago drum show great author just every You know great friend of the show. We he and I talk regularly About the United Raw Hyde Company of Chicago because Rob. It's actually there's not a ton of info online, but Rob has a great blurb on his website about This Classic drum company, which was the United Raw Hyde Company of Chicago So so let me read this and then maybe we'll talk about your relationship with him and your acquiring of that and getting into the drum heads so To quote Rob Cook from Rebeats.com the last tannery to produce heads for the major American drum companies was the United Raw Hyde Company of Chicago operated by mr. Stephen Polanski Polanski a Czech immigrant founded United Raw Hyde in 1951 as the American drum companies gave up their tanning operations in favor of mylar heads and Purchasing finished skins United Raw Hyde became the calf skin supplier to nearly all of the major players such as Gretch Ludwig slingerland and Rogers So that mylar head thing as people listening to the show would know was probably like 56 57 But I think you know, you could still get calf skin heads for for a while there So so the big four Gretch Ludwig slingerland Rogers were doing it Eventually mr. Polanski became the only American producer of heads for orchestral drum Outfits and timpani Outfits meaning, you know drum sets When he retired he sold his business to Stern tanning and trained Stern and his manufacturing process Which is obviously Jeff who we're talking to right now Stern produces skins mounted on wooden flesh hoops as well as unmounted skins They produce snare drum heads white or translucent bass drum heads Timpani heads tambourine heads Bongo and conga heads taiko drum heads and that's that's basically it for what Rob has on his website So does that all sound correct to you Jeff? Yeah, mr. Polanski's business was a look it was He did a little bit more than that the and that was the when we started out We were really busy doing goat skin vellum for high-end furniture For decorative and you know like our more doors table tops. So that was really an important part of his business In terms of the volume. So that that's what we started out Doing the most of was the goat skin parchment and then you know, then we started providing Tambourine we're doing more tambourine heads than mr. Planski was doing for a while Also, can you can you explain because I've actually heard it come up in multiple other episodes What is vellum and like when you say parchment like are you talking about like, you know Like paper it's paper thin basically or like what is the vellum? Yeah, vellum in part. It's basically interchangeable So It's just the you know the process skin of the the hide So there's I don't think there's I've been I've looked into it. I don't think that there's really anything Significantly difference between the two terms vellum or parchment Hmm. So it's just super super thin and I mean when I think parchment Like writing on it. So like are you writing on these super thin goat skin? You know? Parchments vellum. No, I mean we do sell to some people that do calligraphy in But really the thickness of that can be the same thickness as that we sell for our Concert snare or tambourine heads got you Angel heads. Gotcha. Okay, so is then a drum head Made is that a vellum like is that because it's so thin Yeah, I mean they all I don't know that the thickness really, you know differentiates between Well versus rawhide. Okay. I think the vellum is a little more processed. Got it in a cleaner more precise kind of Then what you then when someone thinks of rawhide, you know, it's a Yeah, and and rawhide by nature. It just sounds It sounds more raw Yeah, obviously And and that's just one of many we'll call them for me stupid questions because I know absolutely nothing about this process so All right, so that's cool. So you you said you were making tambourine heads and all this stuff now Obviously for going back a little bit for mr. Polansky That must have been I mean I'm just I don't you there's no way you can really know this unless he actually told you But if he started united rawhide in 1951 then once mylar Synthetic drum heads came in he must have kind of just thought to himself. Uh-oh there goes My my my drum head portion of the business is is in trouble, right? Yeah, well, I'm sure that's the case. I mean he had you know, uh lots of Drum frames that were set up to do You know so he can make the pre mounted heads pre tucked heads. Yeah, and you know, I'm sure at the time when he was At the end he was just doing, you know onesy-toosy type orders as you know a lot of it is what we do Gotcha, so yeah, I'm sure that was the case and I and then same thing happened to me in our sheep's containing business So, you know when I started it up with my father, you know, we said we built it up to the point we were doing about 3 000 skins a week and then the Chinese industry got involved and and pretty much Stopped all, you know paint roller production Lamskin in the u.s. So all the companies that we were selling to you know So it was that same kind of thing that he experienced I experienced with Lamskin paint rollers. Oh man. Well, it It happens in every industry. I mean, there's so many Parallels to drumming where like we always talk about on the show or like silent movies and then the drummers lost a bunch of jobs who were working in theaters or Oh, no, here comes drum machines now drummers lose their jobs. I think there's the the ups and downs of any industry So all right. Well, maybe we can talk about now a little bit more about the process Of how this works and and again you you live and breathe this stuff I do not I've I've got a cap skin head that's on an old I believe 20s or 30s leady bass drum kind of here behind me Um, but I know nothing about it. Right. So so when I started Um, Mr. Blansky was older at the time and so I didn't hit I wasn't able to get a lot of details about the process I I guess he wrote some notes and we tried them And we had to kind of fine-tune things over the years to figure it out how to make a A nicer product. I don't I think a lot of it was Um, there weren't like strict formulas that he gave me because everything was just kind in his head So we had to come up with kind of formulas that we could use so And then I had to figure out The hardest part was the supply of skins had changed for when he was Operating years ago when they were big to what I could get now Um, the the distribution of the raw skin market. It's based on volume um Things are it's harder for, you know small guys just to get Go go somewhere and pick hides anymore like the days of the chicago stockyards The drum companies that were making heads would go down there and pick up just could pick out hides Well, those days are gone now. It's you know, it's you have to buy quantity You know larger than you may need and you have to rely on the sort that you're getting and So it's I had to figure out sources that would work for What we needed so that took a while until I kind of narrowed that down and that's changing all the time I mean the supply that I made about a california for instance for small calf um That that dried up so I had to go somewhere else and so it's always been an ongoing struggle with that um And the same thing with goat skin too, you know as the As the packing houses got busier and busier the quality of the takeoff of the hide Uh became an issue because there'd be butcher scores and marks and holes So I had to really You know try to get people to do sort that I need If they were willing to do that because we're a small user So it's not like anyone's not knocking on our door to sell us skins. Yeah So it was just a relationship so they helped me get what I would need Both in goat and calf and I would do it, you know, I would I was getting selections In everything the big the big steer for taiko and latin percussion and and So that's kind of how we it took years to kind of develop that Um and to figure out then okay. I'm getting bigger calf skins than mr. Plants. He got How do I make that work for what we need? And uh, so I had to figure out different processes to thin the leather uniformly You know make it so that it could be working for the For what we needed for an end product Yeah, so I ended up so what we get from the from various collectors are What I try to get is sorted pre-sorted hides both goat and calf and steer Uh that work for what we need and they most everything comes in salt cured So it's not a what does that mean salt cured? So the pack the packing houses after they do the the run the butchering operation You know, it's the hide businesses become a it's a big byproduct for them So, you know, they we get I'll make a lot of money on hides In good markets for instance and they have so they have an operation where they they'll lay the hides out and Some some are established enough that they actually pre-flesh them on a machine And if not, they just lay them out flat and put salt on them and and you know pile them up and And then they get palatized and go to places like maybe your other big canaries Does it draw them like I guess curing I mean is it drawing the moisture out inside of it salt will draw the moisture out of the hide and cured so that If it wasn't salted, you know, just areas with rocks, you know, in the band areas of the grain That makes sense. So carry on there. So you you get them, you know salt cured and then what happens after that So then then we bring them in and we you know, we rehydrate them um and then we Do an old process and this is mr. Plansky showed me this and I I've modified it a little bit Since doing other things I've kind of learned some things but um, it's a very gentle process to you know, so we'll soak them When they come in once they come in the door and then we'll flesh them They need to be fleshed clean in the raw condition So that the unherring works properly And then from the fleshing operation we go into an unherring which is the old which is a very gentle process the way we do it So we'll have it in Lime and uh, another chemicals for you know, four or five days letting it just very gently Unhear and we don't it doesn't knock the hair out. We actually just it just loosens the The follicle interesting and we have yeah, and we have an unherring machine then we're that I got from mr. Plansky And uh, we run it on there and it knocks it pulls it pulls you try to pull the hair off With the machine And then we also do hand scutting which is really you know labor intensive So we'll scud the hair side also You know clean out the follicles and push any oils and grease out there we can So that's a real labor intensive and that you know that has It's tough to do and it's tough to find people willing to do that. Yeah, I mean there. Yeah, that's an old old operation that people have you know scutting blades in their hand and and working over You know rounded rounded barrel type things and so play the skin out the scutting then what is that actually because the the unherring so To because at first I was like unherring. What's that mean? And I was like oh to unhair to take the hair out so so What is the scutting actually doing is that removing even you said it's removing even further and getting those things There's like, you know oil oils and all this stuff. So What happens if you don't do that? Does it just You know, well, then you end up with we'll end up with a vellum or rawhide that has like let's say it's a black and white holstein You'll see the black and white the black hair follicle in the hide And um, you know, so we actually For our concert base And now that we've developed the process for timpani We scud those real carefully to try to Make them, you know, the appearance really nice. Yeah Yeah, so just the nice appearance meaning it's just one solid like white or translucent just like a nice clean Yeah, yeah, so it'll it'll take the black follicles out So it's it's a cleaner look Do you ever do it where you leave some of those multi like the color like the actual like because sometimes people like that like your front base drum head or something I think dj fontana. I believe with Elvis. He got I think he had a furry Yeah, yeah, we'll do some here on a calf We don't do a lot of it. We were selling it to a a company for That primarily sells in african drumming So for that customer, we were doing here on large calf um in that can also and then i'll once in a while i'll get orders for Here on bass drums We don't do a lot of it and i'm trying to it gets harder to You know to do things and then Uh, just for small real small orders. Yeah And also the what the pressure we have is the the price of the these skins the large skins, for instance That I was selling to the african drumming or used for a concert bass or timpani Or also the I use them for in the um drum kit because they're a thicker um They're very expensive skins. Sure. You're like the top Price per foot raw skin. Most of it goes to italy for high-end uh garment leather So in the supply in the states is pretty low of that There's not a great supply. So the price never really comes down even in slow markets So there's a lot of pressure for me to do here on hides and there's um, you know the the african drumming market is a little bit tighter in terms of pricing so You know it sometimes it's tough for us to Take a take a nice big skin And really make anything when we have to sell them at tighter prices just to compete with the african drumming pricing. Yeah interesting Okay, so um then back in the process. So we were the hair is off We were scutting Yeah, then it then it goes into like a lime solution that's in there for days Um, or you know, that's half the scutting is right after that in the unhearing and then we go into the deliming where we have to Basically get it back to its natural state So we do that chemically and with water and lots of washing. So we go through a lot of water here. Sure and um, and then depending on What i'm doing if i'm making Translucent or white the the process changes a little bit at that point but um And then it's then after it comes out of the water again, we flesh it a few more times So there's a lot of fleshing going on because you want a real clean, you know backside the flesh side um And a lot of washing. So fleshing. How does that? You may have already explained it, but what what is that fleshing? So we use machine to do that and in the old days they would do it by hand And that's actually cleaning the flesh side of the skin You know the the one side is the grain side. That's where the hair is Then the other side is the flesh side of the of the skin So that has to be pristinely clean for the unhearing to work and for it to be a nice piece piece of uh vellum Gotcha, so what a drummer actually plays facing up or a bass drum facing towards them is the internal the inside of the animal's Uh Flesh, correct. No, no, they're generally they're playing on the grain side Got it because then you get a little bit for brushes or whatever you get a little bit of Uh texture, right? Well, the grain side is is generally smoother than the flesh side But if you I mean if you play brushes for instance on the flesh side, it would really Nap up you can the flesh side is the suede side. I see a piece of leather. Yeah Yeah, so that would really nap up and be problematic. So the grain side is the side they play on if they're playing brushes Okay, or or most I mean there are some Uh in orchestral that will play on a really finely sand flesh side But for the most part what we're doing everything is even our orchestral Is everything is on the grain side. Gotcha. So you're hitting you're hitting the side where the hair was. Okay Interesting. All right. So so then uh, how do we get from so we we have uh It's been defleshed. It's been uh It's in the lime. It's all that stuff Where do we go from there to get closer to putting this thing on a on a drum? Yeah, so then after the all the washing and finished flushing operations are done You know, then then you tack out the hide and we do that in old-fashioned way with boards and nails You know the way mr. Plansky did it And you know, so there's stretching going on and it's usually a two man operation And you know, so we let it dry for a couple days And and at that point then the guys do the untacking and then I get involved in doing the sorting and grading um figuring out You know, what's what skin is good for what? What area of the skin? Yeah, I'm I'm there with a long nick micrometer checking And then I do and then I I lay out the hide um And do the cutting and pick the various heads out that I can for for what I know what works and um And then I do finish sanding on a machine that I got from mr. Plansky and um And that's just the old, you know, kind of you have to be really in all about it. Yeah And I'm I'm there with a micrometer checking a hide as I go through it I think I think I maybe do it more than Was done when they were mass producing these Because I've seen old heads come in and they're you know, not entirely uniform. Yeah But I think what happened is when I started out, um You know, I wanted to get uh Real make a really nice head for the orchestral market So there's a tympanist at the cleveland orchestra at tom freer Who was kind of my sounding board and also The guy who would I would send samples to and find out what he thought and he would kind of tell me what he liked um, and he was he's pretty particular so I tend to Really try to Sand things to so they're really uniform. Sure, you know within the thousands or so of If let's say our concert orchestral head is eight thousands thick. I'm right in that seven and a half to eight and a half range Wow on all the heads that we sand. I mean I'm doing the sanding I like that you're you're doing a very specialized thing where you can just kind of feel it And use your tools and all this stuff and and I guess the end product that comes out uses your master full Eye and senses to make sure that the quality is key because I know with a lot of Typically with a lot of people who are buying these it's not like Um, hey, my son is just bought his first drum set. Let's get him a full set of goat skin heads for his little pearl export hunt $200 drum set. It's like no, this is for very passionate skilled drummers. Typically, right? Yeah, right. I mean with at the price point of the drum heads. It's it's not something that beginners You know, I mean you may get young You know orchestral students Sure That want to start out with that and do their you know, either auditions or get ready for grad school and have calf to play on Um, because maybe their professor tells them that they should get some calf or try it so we get that and and our other market is probably and um And that was a little bit new for me. Is the like the drum kit drumming We've been doing it for years, but I've got a better feel for the thicknesses that people like and you know when I a good customer was you know, was stan at pro drum and You know, I was at the beginning when I started I was Stan. He was no, no This is too thin Right because I was kind of geared into the orchestral market And I would send Stan and really nice heads that I thought were nice and he said no No, no, we want we want we want something a little more made on it We want to we want to hear some of that jungle sound a little more, you know, warm So he kind of pushed me Into making a thicker calf skin head for the for a drum kit playing and you know with In that market, you know, they're they're playing and there's a lot of session players and being able to mic things Um, so they get the sound out of it, but so I've got a whole range of you know thicknesses that I know that generally a do for kestrel jazz Uh drum kit some guys, you know, will make specific requests about how thick they like It so I have all the ranges that I work in and I've kind of got a good handle in terms of You know, what everything is in terms of concert bass and feel you know drum at five core and Sure and drum kit. So I've that's just something I've kind of Over the years. Yeah a lot of feel a lot of knowledge a lot of built Uh a lot of experience gained. Um now I want to ask you too So so in that blurb I read from rob cook's website before It mentioned that you can either buy them, you know finished on a hoop drum heads or you can buy them as as kind of untucked can we um, maybe hop over and talk about that that I guess that would be kind of the the final step there of of putting it on a flesh hoop And getting it sent out. I don't really know much about that. Um Can you kind of just like even down to what do you guys make the hoop all this stuff? How the process of tucking works? Uh, let's talk about that a little bit. Okay, so The flesh the wooden flesh hoops we do not make we buy those I buy those unglued and unsanded so what I do then is uh Depending on what size I need to make I use the drum space, you know, I lay out the drum I lay out and I get spacers and see clamps And I you know put the wood flesh hoop. It's you know, it's on it and Bend it around and it's bent when we get it. It's just not glued tight. Then I I'll mark it after it's all set up on the drum with c clamps and spacers Uh mark it and then I glue it Um, and then we do sanding to clean it up after the glue dries Um, and it's good ready to go steel hoops Uh, we make mostly in-house, but we only make them for Really in the past 13 and 14 inch Uh drum heads and that's mostly for their uh, orchestral market Uh, they all want steel hoops on theirs. Why is why would they prefer steel? well Wood hoops over time Can flex in as you're tensioning it So the steel is never gonna, you know, you'll never get any warping or flexing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that's the the different side um It's more expensive To do the steel. Sure But uh, you know the drum kit stuff is A lot of what we do is the vintage and that's You know mostly Oh, that was all wood back in the day um So and we're not set up to make steel for all the other sizes So gotcha We're kind of you know, we're kind of doing wood for all the And for the concert based drum and you know, because we make everything from like 10 inch Or eight inch to 40 inch. Wow Uh finished heads so then um, obviously Let's kind of cover maybe the um The actual process of doing the because because calfskin like Tucking and I guess it there would be on on old old drums. There'd be tack you tack it onto the drum So i'm assuming and i want to talk about the the tucking but like I'm assuming if someone was going to do the tack heads on their own personal like, you know, 1920s or whatever drum set They would order The head not with a hoop. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah So there's people that a lot of people order cut browns only and they either like to do the tucking themselves Or they're you know, they're drum and five core guys and they do all the tucking on their own so, um Yeah, so then we you know, I'll re re hydrate the the sanded head when it's finished In the drum hoop is ready to go And then um, I do the tucking we did a um years ago for drum magazine We did a like a 22 step pictorial step by step kind of instruction of how to tuck a drum head cool, um And I don't remember what year that was but but it's out there in drum magazine And um, so that's just kind of an acquired skill that that you get. I mean it takes a while to You know get a hang of it the guy my manager was doing it before to do them really quickly I'm a little slower But you know it gets done and you know, I know how to get it done. It looks nice Yeah, and then you know, then we put it on and dry it and set the depth So that's consistent between the top of the counter hoop and the top of the drum head So we have it and then it takes a couple days for it to dry And um, you know, then we take it off and then bag it and seal it You know to avoid the fix of moisture while it's sitting around and um, you know, then it's ready to go Wow. Yeah, so I pretty quickly Uh, just googling it and I'll include it in the show notes per usual um, I found this and it's Pretty awesome. I mean man and that is There's a lot of little tools that you're using in this in this like you said it's like a 22 step pictorial uh guide and I mean boy it is just it's just so interesting and it the head looks In this particular picture that again, you know, go to the show notes and you can see it It looks really thin. I guess that's a bottom head. Maybe that I'm looking at which is probably thinner. That's a batter head That's a probably a concert uh snare drum head. He was talking I there's one thing that I've added to the to make it a little bit easier for me. I'll actually um When I do the talking I'll fold the You know the edge of the calf over the hoop and use the clothes pins And lock those lock the fold in with clothes pins and then do the tucking Remove the clothes pin and then put the clothes pin back on and and go around and do the tucking that way Same way. He does it. Yeah, but it just it just keeps it centered Easier and you can push a little harder to push the calf through And you don't have to worry about, you know Stressing one side from the other because the clothes pin kind of helps in hold sites That's just something I've done to make it a little easier for me. He had my guy had been done it and learned From polanski's guys and then he'd been doing it for him. He worked for me for 20 some years So he was doing it, you know from the get go, but so I've been doing it the last, you know three years Now So you've got this drum head that you have been you know about That you're starting the process of tucking you've gotten it nice and uh hydrated And you obviously so it says here you use a squeegee to remove the excess water But so as you're doing the process it's a little bit damp, I guess but As the moisture is leaving The drum head because it's skin then it's tightening itself a little bit and and locking in your tucking right Well during the tucking process, it's pretty quick. So the skin's plenty wet. You don't have to worry about that Now if you're tucking a translucent calf head Like let's say a snare side the rest side for a snare That's very thin and they're very delicate. So we only soak those for, you know, five minutes So they don't hold the moisture as much. So when I'm talking I may have to do the the rest side I may have a little dish of water there that I can sprinkle on At each you know one that I can add to add some moisture to the tuck as I'm going around it because that will That head will end up getting a little stickier And drier and hard to tuck so a little bit water makes a little getting a little water to the edge makes it a little easier Got it. And then as it dries when it when you're done and you obviously want it to dry then it It which leads into my next question here is it so it's going to then tighten itself as skin does Uh, I guess when it's you know, when it loses that moisture, it's going to start to tighten up right I mean, it's 2021 but like Skin doesn't care if it's a hundred years ago or if it's today It's the same problems that you would run into obviously we have more temperature controlled Venues where maybe if you're playing a gig you're going to be more in an air conditioning You're not play it doesn't matter as much if it's raining outside, but people still with these heads have to deal with Uh, humidity issues and loosening and tightening, correct Yeah, nothing's changed from that. I mean, I remember being at one of the basic inventions, you know, watching you know A band and the drummer playing a drum kit Would have had a spray bottle next to him and I seem spraying in an air-conditioned lobby of a hotel and I seem spraying the you know Give it a little moisture that to his bass drum The the the things you have to worry about are the um, the real thin heads They're you know, they're going to react a little bit stronger and tighten more so you the things that the biggest risk is playing any in the Humid conditions and really so you're cranking it up and then Putting in an air-conditioned room without Detuning it before you do that That's the type of thing where you know, but people learn how they have to deal with it, you know, if they're gigging with it or Yeah Yeah, and I mean these like you said, this is your you're you're usually pretty experienced and this is specialized To some degree. I know the head That I have that's on this Old bass drum that I bought this bass drum at like a antique like a flea market kind of thing an outdoor thing It was $35 and um I'm pretty sure I've talked about it on the show before but I I saved it from being bought by an interior decorator Uh, who was going to like put it, you know, I'm sure There's the old joke of like put a piece of glass on it. Boom. You got a table with anything right anything and everything Is it we talk heads for that purpose? Yeah, I'm sure Um, but I have it and it's like it just in the middle of the I don't know. I actually don't know if it's batter or you know, the Rezo head but it is split it's from being so old and I'm sure it's just in in someone's attic And it's just been hot and cold and hot and cold and it just split Um, am I mistaken? I think I saw somewhere online that you can actually repair a split head. Is that right? I don't know if you can I mean we'll sometimes Oh, you know, uh, I was told that people will take if it's a tiny little split, you know That's one thing a big split. You're not going to be able to yeah, it's like Exploded right so a tiny split people will sometimes use barge cement And um, you know a little patch of vellum And glue it and glue to the flesh side Okay, did try to cover that now if it's a split along the bearing edge That's tough that I don't know when you're done. Yeah, because that's where the tension is right This episode is brought to you by dream symbols dream symbols is launching the tasting tour 2021 There's going to be tons of cool symbols members of the dream team on site and the recycling program will be in effect all day At these various awesome music stores around the country september 4th They'll be at everything musical in columbus georgia september 11th and 12th They'll be at epic percussion in williamsport pennsylvania october 2nd They'll be at forks drum closet in nashville october 9th melody music in bloomington indiana october 16th rhythm traders at portland organ And november 6th. They'll be at rough strums in denver colorado. So go out and check it out if dream will be in your town So the big boys the remos and the evans and all these things They don't even go near this Because I guess it's so time intensive But you know, I'm sure they do make those heads that sort of recreate the feel of a calfskin head I know I'm sure you're not really out there playing them too often But have you heard anything about I'm assuming it doesn't really come close to the real thing Yeah, I hear and I've asked because I'm not a drummer. So You know at the beginning I was like, well, I don't know if I can hear the difference When I hear it now I can I can I can hear the difference between the plastic and the In the calf. Yeah, but you know others have told me, you know, there's a Percussionist at the royal opera house in london who said I said, you know, why do you why did I asked him when I was visiting? Why do you like half is Is it feel just feels better to play on it? It's easier on my hands, you know So You know, I didn't think of that when I was first starting this business that it feels better Uh, most of the guys that just say they can't They just the mylar just doesn't replicate the sound that you can get out of calf Yeah And you can do things with you know people tell me you can do things with castle cap So for instance on a bass drum, I've had guys tell me that they they like it's super low Play it where it's like squishy soft and loose And in a mylar head, you know, it's either you got to tune it up or it's nothing Yeah, and calf you can apparently you can do different things So you can you can play a tighter you can play a looser you get different sounds and it works You know Different ways sure now Uh, so you said being over in london and you talked about kind of uh, you know the the fashion industry in italy before Is america? I mean, I guess I mean obviously there's cows and goats all over the place, but are we slash you Are the are we exporting? skins and and tanned You know hides a lot or is this kind of you know people typically stick in their their region that they order? No, I mean in the states there's very few tanneries left So everything pretty much gets For fine leather might get exported to italy like the kid the the kip calf skin that I buy kip skins are large calf um So I buy those and um So I'm competing with the italian tanneries most everything else here in the states is going to china for tanning So the raw skins are you know salt cured and palletized and shipped overseas. So there's very little production Of raw hides going on. There's a couple big tanneries that do cow hide leather here in the states um But you know a lot of it is for the smaller hides a lot of it most of it goes overseas now Hmm interesting. Okay So, uh, let's say um, if I'm a drummer who Really wants to experiment and maybe get a snare head or get into this. I know you've said that it can be I mean they're gonna find out if they want to order So so how much does it typically cost per head? And then maybe we talk about To people do a top head and a bottom head I mean because even with With you know, let's say you buy remo drum heads and you do your top and bottom of every drum I mean, you're probably looking you can spend with a bass drum head front and back You can spend 300 dollars 250 dollars to do your whole drum set with with mylar with synthetic drum heads Uh, what is the price range typically on on on your heads? So for instance for drum kit um, what we tell the most of our probably 14s and 16s of 14 inch calf on wood is 80 dollars And a like a 16 inch calf on wood is 95 dollars. Okay, uh, and people who people do both top and bottoms most who just tops but um Yeah, we sell and I'll make uh, you know, depending on what the drummer wants I'll make a thinner one for the res side. You know, I've had some, you know, studios Order super thin res side for their for their kick drum on the res side So it really varies but um, yeah, you could spend hundreds of dollars Outfitting a You know a drum here Yeah, I mean it sounds like if you if you have a 1920s Trap kit and you want to make this thing as period correct as humanly possible And you want calf Everywhere, I mean it sounds like you could spend like You could get close to like a thousand dollars if there's depending on the amount of drums that you have Uh front back top bottom snares chinese tom tom whatever um, so It it's not something to take lightly, but if you want to have it period correct and if you want to get into that world it sounds like um But I think everyone understands from hearing you that this is not an easy process This is a labor-intensive process and you're paying for your your talent and your your background and your skills and All that. Yeah. The other thing about calf is the heads last forever. I mean, okay We have customers that have had you know, I'll run into them at PASIC and they say oh, I bought that head from you 13 years ago. I still love it and you know, so I mean I get You know, this calf skin doesn't dimple Right, you just so you can keep using it Yeah, I mean when you buy a kick a calf skin for a kick I mean that's probably the last base drum head you're gonna buy for that drum man So, you know, there is that I mean this stuff lasts forever So and that's why you still see drum heads, you know, I mean you see, you know Drums from the 40s the calf heads still floating around from the original ones. Yeah, but Like you said, you got to make sure that if you're um Going to store them or whatever you need to detune it obviously So it doesn't get tighter and the looser and tighter. So so would you just Detune it all the way to make this no It's just we have an instruction sheet that we give to people but it's just detuning it a little bit You don't want to do it so dramatically that you change the location of the bearing edge Okay So you want to keep it in that range, but it's just maybe a quarter turn or something like that or half turn I see cover if you're in a really dry condition. You maybe you want to just put a You know a miler head over the top of it or you know something to protect it, but it's not As much as it's, you know as much work as it you might think but um You do have to be cognizant of Putting something in a really highly air conditioned Area, you know, it's yeah, it's going to change things. I think sometimes stories and legends and I don't want I guess tall tales you kind of hear like again me hearing from like my grandpa it's like He made it sound like at some point to me that the head was just becoming so loose like during the The course of a gig that it's like, you know hanging off. It's like skin drooping and I'm like, okay now you're talking It's like I guess it's not that dramatic No, I I'm sure If you know, you're outside playing and it's you're in it's 70 percent humidity or something you're gonna have problems I'm you know, I'm just you know camp isn't for any everything and that's why it is the rated miler, right? Sure, you know That's exactly and we won't raise the question of who invented miler because that is uh sticky subject for a lot of people but um All right now, uh as we're getting close to the end here I would be interested to talk a little bit more as much as you can. I know, um, we've talked about it on some previous episodes a little bit about so tanning In the big picture like many historical, uh technologies has a much bigger Background and applications than drumming so like medieval times. I mean going back. I'm sure tanning goes back as far as man, um, you know and and when they figured it out Uh, the biggest priority was probably not a drum head. It was probably creating clothing or anything like this. So, um I don't know. I mean, it's a pretty broad question But maybe we can just talk about as much as you can the history of this stuff a little bit and and I think it has a connotation of being historically very, uh, like a tannery would be very smelly and involve like I guess you could say like brains people say and like excrement from animals to abuse the chemicals and urine and all this stuff Um, so I don't know what you want to shine some some light on all that well Yeah, maybe you know many many years ago, but things have changed now the tanners are pretty modernized Sure, you know and we're I mean, it's not like we're super modern But we have a you know a wastewater treatment system So we treat all the wastewater that goes through the tannery has to be treated Um, we recycle, you know, so we do chrome tanning and our other letters that we make here and the sheet skin And so we recycle and reuse the chrome. So there's very little In in all the water is treated for chrome. So there's like no chemicals going out into the you know So we're monitored and everything's really clean for the Milwaukee. So it's not like You envision, you know the old days Yeah, you know chemicals No ones no big tanneries are using brain doing brain tanning all that kind of stuff is you know done in small operations So the tanneries now are pretty clean and the wastewater systems are pretty good and you know, everything gets dried the sludge gets treated sludge gets, you know filtered and dried and Um, yeah, it's suitable for landfill. So it's it's just not I mean There's definitely odors you can't avoid it because of dealing with raskins Yeah, uh, and the chemicals can kick off some odors too now The chemicals that we use to unhear in a big operation that chemical does smell like rotten eggs It does stink But we use so little of it because we use such a mild um unhearing process You know, it's almost like using nothing So you don't really have that strong of an odor anymore with what we do Gotcha. All right, so you said it brain tanning and I and I'm just you know People like this stuff. We got to ask the gross question. What is it about like a animal's brain? Well, that does that. Yeah, it's the it's the acidity you get from it So that's in tanning leather Um, you need acid to pickle and cure the hide So the brain the acids from the brain Will act as the acid that you use You know, so for instance, I don't use brain tan if I do tanning we use formic acid and sulfuric acid You know in barrels So makes sense right but guys that are doing the traditional brain tan And and that's really labor intensive because they have to do things to then manually soften the leather Because it doesn't provide as soft of a leather as like a More modern chrome tan or elham tan does yeah, but um Yeah, it's just you know There's there there are people doing and it's a specialty and there's still it's still a desired market I mean there's a lot of demand for that It's just on a small scale and and uh, there are guys that will are willing to do that Kind of really hard physical work and do smaller volume Sure and and make it well I just always find it fascinating that like I mean i'm i'm referring to like medieval times, but um, I think most people who kind of into the history stuff know that like Yeah, brains would obviously be one thing, but like the amount of things that people would use like urine for To make like gunpowder and use it as like cleaning agents And I remember hearing that people would use it to like clean their teeth In the olden days, which you know, we obviously think it's disgusting and gross, but like you don't Have these chemicals, you know, right? Well, jeff. Why don't we tell people here? Um If they're interested in this a lot of people listeners to the show a lot of listeners of the show are very You know diehard collectors and they're probably customers of yours already. I'm sure some of them But um, how do they go about ordering? Um You know a calf skin or goat skin uh drum head from you. Yeah, so I I've started at work Making an online store, which I've never finished Um, because I just haven't been able to have the time to make enough inventory to ever stock it Yeah, so the best way to order for me now is still phone or email You can find uh us online at stern tanning dot com And you can email me through the The website there's prices out there. I don't have an order form So it's pretty much you get a hold of me. I'll you know, we can do PayPal or credit card and and uh, so it's still A little uh old fashion, but yeah, yeah, it works Um And then you know, I I'll ask questions for instance things they should know ahead of time is So for instance if it's an old kit, you know, let's say a 20s 30s or 40s kit Those heads may need uh oversized heads For the hoops are just the touch larger than the modern ones now Um, because that's how they made it, you know back in those times Yeah, so like an old scratch kit may need an oversized hoop We can do that, but I need to know so the questions I may ask are if whether or not a standard mylar head fits Uh, your drummer, do you need to get something a little bit bigger? Is it too tight? Um, and then I'll know that so I can size the hoop a little bit larger Right when I set it up and glue it um thicknesses of what you like, you know um For instance, you know, or the type of playing if you're just a light jazz guide you want to so then maybe you want a little thinner um, someone who plays Heavier, you know, we may have may go up to like a 14 000s in thickness um for a banner head so it's those kind of questions and and um And usually yeah, so every time someone calls or emails me I kind of go through that routine of asking that question those questions Yeah, and then we figure out what they want Yeah, you you bring up a very good point and I believe we talked about it on the uh Uh a premiere episode with mike ellis uh premiere drums they There's pre international sizes where They if you're buying a vintage kit, I think you kind of just raised a flag where you know If you own a 1920s drum set you probably know this but make sure you measure because They might be half inch sizes. They might be you know, five eighths of an inch nine and five eighths of an inch uh instead of 10 inch or 12 inches is 11 and seven eighths and i'm reading a not so modern drummer kind of blurb about it real quick just to kind of Uh refresh my memory, but so You know, don't take for granted that you have a 12 inch tom and a 16 inch floor and a 20 inch kick They're slightly different. So um as jeff was just saying make sure you You know talk to them beforehand and kind of figure that out because they they didn't make it easy at first And as far as I understand too some of that was so Back in the day, you have to order your gretch drum head for your gretch drums From a gretch dealer or from a gretch themselves or whoever who makes that particular 24 and a half inch bass drum head um to kind of keep it all in there Uh, you know keep it all on their side of buying things Yeah, and we had people uh, we have a lot of people that send us drums because they have odd sizes I you know, I can't I need the drum to make If i'm going to make a wood flesh hoop I need the drum In hardware and everything to to make the drum head I needed for sizing and I also needed to dry it because I just you know, sometimes people want to send me a flesh hoop um, that's an odd size And one of the difficulties is I can't dry it then because when a drum head dries when it's not on a drum frame It'll warp and potato chips from the drying process interesting So I mean there are times when I've done things where I've actually taken the tucked head dried the outer edge sealed it in plastic bag and then overnight it to someone And then they've got to be available to put take it out of the bag right away because you don't want it to mold of course Yeah, and then put it on their drum And dry it so I've had situations where we've done that More often than not if it's a smaller base to any size tom smaller tom Uh, they'll actually just send me the drum And then you know, we can make a complete thing there and send it back. So we do that also and um Yeah, that's the that's the difficult part in the odd size shape we had Mr. Plansky had more of those sizes like a 25 and a half and different You know variables and I I lost my factory burned down in 2007 And so a lot of the the drum frames that I bought from mr. Plansky. I lost all those in the fire Wow So when we started up again, I had to you know, I was on I was on ebay people thought We were probably wondering why they're selling so many drum frames You know, I mean, I wasn't buying anything nice Yeah, I was just buying You know everything I could find that were 14 inch snare drums that were affordable for me. Yeah, I started back up and Other you know every sizes I could think of I mean all the 40 inch pots are based on my bought You know so I had to restock all of those sizes after the fire But I when I wasn't able to do was restock The odd sizes that Plansky had collected over the years the 25 and a 25 and a half was a real common 27 and a half was a real common Um, yeah, which is very rare. I'm sure to find that that equipment that he used that those sizes I mean that had to be I'm sure they're just not around anymore Right, I mean you once in a while you can maybe find one but it's not like I sell a lot of those So I'm not going to spend, you know thousands of dollars to get a 27 and a half inch bass drum but Those are the things that that happened that so now it's made things a little bit tougher So if someone has an odd size, it's the safest thing to do is to send me the drum Makes sense and I mean, uh, mr. Plansky was obviously doing this in 1951 So for him it would have just been, you know, oh, that's the way it is. There's a 27 and a half There's a 25 and a half. This is stock, you know, standard sizes, but uh, that is clearly not the the case anymore. Um, so awesome well Jeff, I mean, I want to thank you for being on the show. I want to thank bill writer for getting us getting me your info back in november of 2020 which um, you know, that was right in the thick of it. So, um Thanks for taking the time. Jeff. I think this is awesome. You've done a I mean again, you've you've held your own amongst drummers to be able to Teach us all something that we do not know about and hopefully you can get some customers out of it. Um And uh, yeah, thank you for being here. All right. Well, thanks for having me burt If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review And let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future Until next time keep on learning