Maplecraft Manufacturing can mark its beginning in a simple diary entry of Herman Cowing
Tues. Jan. 19 1926: Worked all day. We bent our first hoops today. I bent the first hoop.
Although dairy farmers at heart, brothers Herman and Raynold Cowing, along with Raynold’s young son Earle, had built a mill on their farm and began tinkering with steam boilers and modifying windlass machinery for the purpose of making drum parts.
Basket makers by early trade, the Cowings had a specialized knowledge of steam bending wood, and with a ready supply of high quality Vermont hardwoods, the Cowings planned to supply drum, banjo, tambourine and ukulele parts OEM to the burgeoning music trade. Maplecraft Manufacturing was to play a major, although largely hidden role, in the making of many of the now prized 20th century drums. By the early 1930’s the Cowings had geared up their shop and were producing hundreds of hoops each week to for what today assembles as a who’s who of the golden age of great vintage drum builders:
George B. Stone , Joseph Rogers, Walberg & Auge , Peripole,
Charles Walton (Drummer’s Service), Sanford “Gus” Moellar, George Way Drum Co, Peter Rich (Brooklyn),
Fred Gretsch, William F Ludgwig, Frank Wolf (Drum Shop) New York, Frank’s Drum Shop, Chicago, Vespe Drum Shop
All these famous drum builders were purchasing their bentwood hoops from Maplecraft Mfg.
This 1927 ad celebrates Lindberg's Cross Atlantic Flight
The Cowings watched the market circumspectly as their solid wood hoops were slowly replaced with laminates. Werco and United Rawhide (skin drum head makers)
relied on Maplecraft flesh hoops, while and a few of the die-hard drum builders like Camco, Slingerland, and Noble & Cooley continued to rely on the steam-bent solid hoops to produce the “vintage” sound. By the 1970’s only the last of the great traditional 20th century rope drum builders Eames, Cooperman, and Reamer were using the Maplecraft hoops.
By the 1980’s only Earle was left alone at the mill to saw logs and follow through on the arduous steam bending process. Pat Cooperman had started building drums in the early 1960’s and was firm proponent of the solid wood sound. He dreamed of building from log to finished drum, to re-introduce to builders and drummers alike vintage quality snare shells and deep rope-tensioned field drums. In time, Cooperman had become Maplecraft’s largest client, and Pat Cooperman had become a personal friend of Earle. In 1987 Cooperman purchased the old mill and began the task of re-vitalizing the business.
For the first time the complete process of bending hoops and making finished drums was drums brought together at the old mill. Much of the original mill and its machinery is still used, but advanced bending technologies were incorporated into the original Cowings’ windlass machines. Cooperman craftsman learned from Earle Cowing the skills of selecting trees in the local forests for their unique bending characteristics and tone qualities, and the craft of sawing the logs and bending the lumber.
Earle's last birthday at the mill (1999?)
Cooperman craftsmen brought their own refined drum building skills and in time Cooperman furthered the process by adding expert lathe turning of the rims and the bearing edges.
