Ludwig Speed King Refurbish Part 1

[Music] hey welcome to another episode of hack a week this week I'm gonna do some work on a speed King bass drum pedal that's right I picked one of these up on eBay for about 60 bucks the really cool pedal from the 60s 70s lots of drummers use these back then John Bonham being one of them on Led Zeppelin Charlie Watts used one swear by them they're really cool to get a compression spring mechanism right here in this little tower thingy inside there is a compression spring rather than one that stretches and there's a cam in here and then you know this is it this is how they work but they are also known as the squeak king listen that little squeaky noise listen sometime - I'm still loving you by Led Zeppelin right in the beginning of it and you'll hear John Bonham's speed kings weaken away so what's so cool about these well they're really super fast action when they're all cleaned up and working right that's what John Bonham used to do those really badass triplet bass lines that you hear let's see what's one of the songs yeah the song good times bad times by Led Zeppelin you can hear the the triplets in there that he's doing on the bass I mean it sounds like double bass when you're good enough with one of these you don't even really need to do like a double pedal you can you can do triplets like crazy because you can control the bounce they rebound so fast it's kind of like when you when you bounce a drumstick off from a drum head and you can control it with your hand by you know just putting that little bit of tension on it as you push down and you get the perfect well you can do that with one of these too this one needs some work it's just typical of an older one that's gummed up it doesn't rebound very well there's actually roller or ball bearings inside here and a little cap that covers that underneath are the two screws that adjust the tension on the springs and we need to get those screws out get the springs out and then there's some pistons in here that will slide out and we'll remove this cap we can get in there get at all this stuff clean it up really good put a minimal amount of grease back in it not very much there's a video out there this guy I saw yesterday where he just kept saying if a little grease is okay then a lots got to be good that is so not true he was putting way too much grease in that thing just a little bit does the trick and then once you do get it all up and running just a little squirt of wd-40 now and then like right here at this point will will help keep it working fine the squeaky points are right here where the connecting rod goes on to that pin that's a metal to metal contact with no lubrication right there's another one this one incidentally is in good shape in regard to these two points these are where points that can get pretty nasty I've seen a couple of them for sale on eBay where this hole right here was all hog out and really loose this one has a bent rod I don't know how that got bent but I'll straighten that out before we're all done and then the other place they squeak is right back here at the heel at the hinge and all this is it's just a real simple affair with a pin that runs through there is a brass bushing in there let's see you can see that one right there a little bit of that brass color that's a bushing that's in there this one isn't too bad it's got a little bit of play in it but it's not terrible but I'm gonna do some refurbishing on this one and replace these and since I have access to my lathe and vertical mill here at work I can probably do a pretty neat job of that but first things first we're gonna get in here and get after all this business and clean this all up another neat thing about these is they break down pretty easy that just pops out this comes up and you can fold this up like so and stash it in a bag whatever and take it your gigs so let's see all right first thing I want to do is get these two screws out of here and as per usual oh yeah that's what's gonna be fun I have read about this that these things can seize up a bit this one looks like it's gonna be alright now but there is definitely some goo in those dregs a little bit old TV blaster in there the stuff man you can't spray just a little bit of it it's either completely flooding the area or always work these things back and forth a bit like this when they're tough to come out especially when there's lots of stuff in the threads now cam this one's on the way out see if we can get that piston to drop out of there this is really gummed up yeah it's pretty goood up all right you got the two screw plugs out I had to put in the vise and really get after it it's a giant screwdriver okay see if I can get the springs to come out of here get in there with some small needle nose pliers oh god this grease has just totally turned into like this waxy go it's not even grease anymore Wow this stuff's bad it's like it's coming off in hard chunks the grease anyway we got the springs out but up inside here are the Pistons now they're stuck up in there so we're gonna have to work from the top down to push those out so it's time now to get these end caps off and this has been banged around a bit here on the top which is gonna kind of suck pulling these out because the technique to get these off is you just warm up this part of the head right here and then just give it a sharp wrap like this with a dead blow hammer and then you know it pops out the opposite way but because that's bent right there a little bit that's gonna give me a hard time I get this a bit closer you can see what I'm talking about right right in that area right there see how it's got a dimple in the top of it now let's see what we can do to maybe give that a little tap in the other direction now that might have helped a bit that and then just kind of scrape it with a screwdriver okay take a little a little bit of three in one oil this is the technique I saw on a couple of videos some people put these in the refrigerator overnight to get everything internally really cool and then warm up the upside you use a heat gun to do it I'm gonna go pay torch you're gonna take much heat like a little bit but we're after is heating up that outside so it expands a little and the oil will hopefully penetrate down in there a bit well warm it up till I see a few bubbles happening in the oil there I thought it'd be enough let's see if there's work will hold it up off the bench and just going to put a sharp rap look at that papi right off okay let's go for side two okay let's see what happens and how that one came excellent all right let's look at what we've got here so this is the cam that rotates with the lever here and the rod that runs up and down inside this tower gets moved up and down by that cam once we get it further apart you'll see what's going on but pretty much right there at the center of that where I'm pointing at it with the punch there's a piece of metal that rubs against this this piece here so let's see if we can get that out I'm just pushing it down right now and I might have to get like a piece of wire to continue to do that got a pretty stiff piece of welding wire here coat hanger would probably work too I'm just gonna poke it down into that hole and push down see if we can get that rod to push out the bottom there it goes I can pull that out wow that's gummed up oh man and there it is so you see it's got this at this flat spot on it right here and so what happens is as that cam pushes on that section right there it moves it up and down and up to clean this up more and get the bearing out of there but you'll see once I get it apart how that cam works okay now that we have this cleaned up a little better you can see what's going on that cam sits in that bearing that's a bearing right there and on the other side of this there is a rod that runs right through to the shaft right where that black dot is so you can see now that if there's the piston that sits in here let me grab one of those it's got that flat spot on it and it sets up in there like so and as this rotates around when you move the pedal see where the black dot is down and back up it pushes down it compresses the spring the spring pushes it back up and it's pretty much that simple already let's warm this up again then make this quick because they don't want it to warm up the bearings just the aluminum part okay well this time I'm gonna tip it upside down to do this and hang on to it there it is yippee that was really freaking easy all right got the bearings cleaned up in the solvent tank they spin freely and I was gonna leave this assembly together but see it's spread apart a bit and wondered if maybe I can squeeze that back together a little maybe I'll pop these two pins out plus it would just be a good demo to show how to pop these two pins out yeah let's do that I've got a socket here on the bench that I'm resting this on that punch and lay Hemmer just give it a wrap it's reluctant it's a reluctant pin need to prop up this other side there we go let's wrap this smartly as they say smart eh voila we know CLE now very important to remember the orientation of where this cam goes so we're just gonna put a dot on this one to to kind of remind myself that it lines up right here with this part of I'm gonna call this the axle I think that's what you call it should be able to pull these things out of there now just grasp then with the pliers and give them a little well yep maybe you might want to grab some different pliers yep there it goes that's one helps if you twist at the same time so pull there we go it is apart there is a pin that holds this clamp in place this is what holds it to the bass drum by the way there's a hole on this side that you can put a punch in to punch out that roll pin I don't have a long punch like that but I do have this drill bit I don't think this is gonna be too terribly tight in there let's see how easy it moves that is working all the way to things out the other side because we're gonna have to put it back in this side and drift it back in the same way we took it out this is ready to get be blasted now all glass beaded and I'm in the process of cleaning out the bores here these are not the exact size of the rods they're actually a little bit bigger there's quite a bit of clearance in there so I'd like to get as much of that old freak out of there as I can or should I say wax it's pretty much turned to wax and that does the trick there give it a final rinse a little bit of brake cleaner really flammable stuff this is the alcohol-based brake cleaner that I use all the time parts cleaner but it's highly flammable so be careful around the flames don't want to light any kind of flames right now or all of this would just totally go up it okay all the pieces laid out ready for reassembly this has been bead blasted it's got a nice look to it right now I'll probably paint this in a hammer finish paint at some point I may not do it right now maybe I'll just leave it and see how it just naturally oxidizes and tarnishes I kind of like the look of it now it's just a dull aluminum also soda blasted all of the chrome parts and they cleaned up really nice soda blasting is it's just basically soda ash in other words it's the the washing soda that you can buy in a box it's sodium carbonate not sodium bicarbonate and you put it in a blast cabinet and it's enough to take off the cred but not hurt the finish did a nice job on the chrome bits so we are ready for reassembly I'm going to repack these bearings with a bit of grease and then we'll be ready to put things together so what I want to do is force some grease right into this little crack all the way around here there's not too much room to get grease in but I want to get some grease shoved in there right into the where the balls are inside this thing I could possibly pop the dust cap off there but I don't want a chance distorting it so I'm just gonna see what I can do repacking it what I call old-school style so it looks like a sharpie marker will work here it'll plug the hole for me and then I've got some syllable ID lubricant it's just basically a silicone lubricating compound another one that people use is super lube with a PTFE grease but I'm gonna try this stuff out so I'm just gonna get a bead of it around the outside here and then just go like this and start rolling it into that crack and just keep this up for a few minutes and make as much of that grease disappear as I can if it goes away I know it's going into the bearing and give it a little turn as we go and just keep shoving this in there till we make the grease go away you can see some of the old grease squished out the other side so we know we packed it full of grease well that's one down and one to go all right bearings are all repacked the little rods the push rods that clean those up on my lathe and actually straightened one out one of the ends was just a little bit bent got all the old grease out of the springs so let's see first thing to do is get the axle back in here and we'll put the cams back in and run the pins in so we'll just lay it on the side here I'm gonna put just a little bit of grease on these cams where they slide into that axle for lack of a better term to call it and remembering that that dot lines up with this part of it you can kind of see to where the holes line up try to get them lined up as close as possible and then once you get it in there you can turn it on its side and you can actually see in there you can see the hole you just rotate it until it lines up then we'll get a pin in get one started you're just gonna give it a little tap just to get it started then we can go ahead and lay it down and tap it in just like we did just like we did when we pulled it out I'm gonna go ahead and do the other side too that'll help hold everything in place for me doesn't have to be all the way leave it a little bit proud that's okay seem to go a little easier okay here we go now we can put the bearings back in drop those in there you should go in fairly easy you can just use like a deep well socket close to the size of the bearing to push those in just give them a push by hand until they bottom out make sure you put them in the right way with the label facing out I might have got that other one in backwards that way the grease stays in because the site that we packed is yeah I got that one in a little backwards see if I can tap that back out of there real quick hello get back here we'll put that one in with the writing facing out push that in there okay next are the the rods let's get some lube on those unlike the other video I saw with the guy loading it up with just like I mean gobs and gobs of grease I'm just gonna put a little bit on here smear it around a little bit just to coat it make sure we get some on the whole surface and then I'm gonna leave a fairly good glob right there on the end and then as I push it in that'll help lubricate the inside of this bore we'll put a little bit on the end there - nice little globule and again that'll help put some in the bore as we go up in there let's grab a spring and just a little bit of lube on the spring doesn't take too much just enough to get the friction down a bit push that in now the cams going to come out this other end and the trick is is it's got to be rotated on the right way let me try that again and push it back out make sure that we have the flat side facing out I'm sorry flat side facing in I make sure that the flat side is in and we'll put the spring in and it should come out up on the top here there it is we can go ahead and put the screw in the bottom and I suppose if you have a half inch right 20 thread per inch tap you could chase these threads out a bit but these aren't too bad this is going back in okay I'm just gonna take this in to the point where it's flush with the bottom maybe just a little bit deeper than the bottom and we're done now that side is all finished and that's probably enough grease that's in there right now I can move a little bit of it around just to make sure it's on the cam and then we'll put the cap back on I suppose you could pay attention to the the words and just have them lined up wherever you feel is appropriate I'll put the word ludwig at the top on this one I should just go back in by the hand and now we'll do that same thing on the other side okay now we're ready to put the clamp back on so we'll go ahead and get that in place if the pen started and then I can just use the punch I have here to get the thing going and then I'll use that drill to finish the job when you get to a quarter of an inch of it's still sticking out this is where you're gonna have to watch to make sure that it's lined up on this side before you drift it the rest of the way so I'm gonna hold it up hold the clamp up a little bit against the the goalpost as this assembly is known love them these pieces get up over the years and then we'll take a look at it just see how centered it is looks like I could go just a little bit further with it that looks good let's put the wingnut for the beater back in this one's in really good shape I've read on some of the drummer forums that the original beaters that came with these had a flat spot on one side where you lined it up for the thing to pinch against because if these aren't tight enough they've been known to throw the beater out right in the middle of when you're playing which is just no fun at all you can now put the pedal back on drop this in place you know what I'm gonna put a tiny bit of some of this grease right down in here on that spot see if that helps with some of the squeak and this stuff's pretty neat dry slide dry Lube it's a graphite lubricant it's got a solvent carrier and once the solvent carrier dries all that's left is graphite I'll show you a little bit here on a piece of plastic kind of kind of a brownish look to it but it's basically graphite suspended in a solvent pretty neat stuff I'm gonna put a little bit of that on this other pivot point up here it'll penetrate in all on its own that's what's nice about this stuff I've used it for years on my bicycle on the derailers and cables and whatnot I can also put some right here on the source of a lot of the squeak on these things in another video I'm going to do an upgrade on this bushing section back here see what I can do to improve all of this and that about wraps it up that thing moves easy now it bounces that's what you want you want it to be bounty and the springs aren't tensioned up much yet I could I can get them a lot tighter which means it's gonna have even faster rebound so we'll take this home now and get it on the drum kit see how it works out well that wraps up part one of the Ludwig speed king bass drum pedal rebuild and later we'll do part two where I redo the bushings on the back part of the pedal right here and hopefully that gets rid of the squeak altogether there's lots of mods that people do to these to make them better there's lots of people out there that you can send yours to to get it modified there's people that put plates on the bottom of them if you just go google searching for people that do modifications on speed kings you'll find quite a few different sources for that well thanks for watching thanks for subscribing please like and share and until next time you [Music]

Channel: HackaweekTV

Views: 19,418

Rating: 4.9285712 out of 5

Keywords: diy, hardware hacking, hackaweek, mechanical, drums, drumming, musician, drum kit, drum set, drum hardware, ludwig, ludwig speed king, speed king repair, bass drum pedal, kick drum pedal, kick drum pedal repair

Id: PIE-33XHD04

Length: 29min 58sec (1798 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2017