126. Destructo donkey strikes again

Today, Gus hits the pedal at a funny angle and flips it over.  He’s unperturbed, but now it’s cockahoop and I have to cram its side rails back into alignment.  The delay of game makes him antsy; he’s shoving his nose into the proceedings and wishing I would hurry the hell up.  I do get it fixed, but a few minutes later he stomps it a little bit off-center again, and the footplate itself snaps in two right across the middle.  It looks like it was cast from cheap pot metal, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it flunked the donkey destruction test. 

My plan was always to attach the hi-hat stand to a pyramid of two-by-fours or some other sturdy structural support, and I figured I might also need to widen the surface of the pedal just for visibility.  Having the pedal broken in half hardly matters:  I can still use four (or six) bolts to attach a thin square of plywood to its surface.  That’ll reinforce it against 700 pounds of donkey and also spread the impact over a wider area.  I show the pedal wreckage to a friend who’s an avid handyman and customizer, and he generously offers to make the repairs for me.  He’s thinking of rivets, and he’s pondering plywood vs. plexiglass, and then he asks about widening the base as well so as to minimize any future flipovers.  Now he’s got a nifty new project and with a spring in his step he takes the thing away to his workshop.

While it’s up on blocks, Gus and I are practicing the keyboard and bicycle horn, getting those instruments down pat in preparation for adding the cymbals.  It’ll be a crazy-ass one-man band, fer sherr . . .