Project "HOOLIGAN" a-go-go

[Jay.B.]

Well I finally got myself a kit to butcher, and guess what, I forgot to take any decent pics before I started LOL what an idiot ;o)

Anyway, it started out as a Pearl Forum 12" 13" 16" and 20" in metalic wine red wrap, there is no definate plan on where I'm going just yet, I do have ideas I would like to use on this, but we'll see, I guess it'll just be one of those "GROWING" things, you know those things that just evolve as time goes by haha

I have got them totally stripped down to the bare shells, and have given the 12" and 13" a good going over with some reasonably fine sand paper. up untill I stripped the last drum down , I was all prepared for doing a wax or laquer/varnish job on the shells as they really aren't as bad as I was expecting, then I stripped the 13" hahahahaha all the others have a horizontal grain and the 13" has a vertical LOL so that kinda threw that idea out of the window (unless I dropped down to a 4 peice)

Anyway, here's a couple of pics of the progress so far, it's gonna take a while, funds are limited, and the hardware I'd like to fit to the shells aint cheap, but I'll get there in the end.

BTW... any hints or tips you might have if you've done this yourself would be greatly appreciated...

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[badlydubbedsean]

Murder! Nah joking, that's a neat job there. I don't regularly do that to my drums myself (errr) but it looks all cool.

[Mediocrefunkybeat]

Dear God I only dread to think of what you're going to do to these poor shells Jay.

[Jay.B.]

This might shed a little light over one of the ideas I was having

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HHMMmmmmmmm.......

[badlydubbedsean]

It really is Halloween.

[Jay.B.]

evil will reign once again MWuhuhahahaha

[Mediocrefunkybeat]

This is Halloween... this is Halloween... Everybody SCREAM!

[Synthetik]

This might shed a little light over one of the ideas I was having

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HHMMmmmmmmm.......

Jerry Garcia came to me in a vision... he said "If you build it, they will play..."

[Jay.B.]

just priced up the hardware I would like to put on this project...

£525 YIKES!! all top quality stuff though from highwood, think I'll have to be a little more modest though and use chrome hardware instead of the black nickel, and maybe use the existing lugs. maybe get it up and running on original hardware and then upgrade it one drum at a time, might make a little more sense, depends how long it takes me to finish the shells and whether the new hardware differs much in fittings to the existing stuff Hmmm more stuff to think about... ... ... ...

[wnameth]

i had the same PROB when i did my old kit (painting) and all my wood looked like that, its just the luck of the draw i guess. love my new yamaha natural finish drums tho, pretty much what i wanted to attain with my old pearl export.

-Wes

p.s keep us updated.

[Jay.B.]

yeah, shame really, but like you said, luck of the draw with the lower down the range wrapped drums, but hey, my main plan is still possible at the moment.

so far... I'm still trying to find a supplier for the fabric I'm after.

A mate is lending me his compressor and spraying equipment so I can laquer the drums when covered.

I've had an email back from highwood regarding the hole spacing for fitting the hardware so I can now prioritise the order in which I do things. Fortunately the lugs I'd like have only a 1mm difference in hole spacing, so the holes can be slightly elongated when it's time for those, they can also be done at a later date when all other jobs are finished, and one drum at a time as funds are available seeing as it will be a relatively minor and easy modification.

The bass drum spurs and tom mounts are going to be the first major spend as they have completely different hole spacings and will need to be drilled before anything else happens to the shells.

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[drozzy]

IM in the process of stripping and recovering/rewrapping a few old kits. I have tried out a lot of different methods, mainly staining, painting and different methods of stripping, but you seem to have this downpat.

What i am trying this weekend, however, is rewrapping the drums in a canvas material wrap, in a similar way that DDRUM dominions can have the camouflage wrap. Going out to the material store to stake out some good finishes.

Will keep you all posted, and good luck with your refinishing.

[Jay.B.]

What i am trying this weekend, however, is rewrapping the drums in a canvas material wrap

That's pretty much what I'm doing, only difference being, I'm going to try and laquer over the top of the fabric ti give it some depth and shine, also going to laquer the insides of the shells aswell.

Let me know how you get on, what the material is like to work with and how you stick it to the shells, I'm considering using spray-on carpet glue.

[drozzy]

I was thinking about using thinned PVA glue. WHich should cause to harden the fabric and adhere to the wood. Then i will put a few coats of spray on gloss estapol on the top, followed by matte to hide the shine.

Im thinking a thick curtain fabric would be best, as normal polyester or cotton my be too thin... I wanted to do it in camouflage but it is very hard to come by apparently... only available in really thin fabrics...

I was also toying with the idea using a faux tiger fur kind of fabric to wrap them in. That would just look so awesomely glam metal.

[Jay.B.]

haha I too considered faux fur, was heading more towards leopard or zebra, buy yeah, seriously GLAM rock, bring back poison and faster pussycat (well their 80's incarnations anyway)

I'm going more for the thin cotton fabric like the one pictured above with the skulls and roses, I'm talking to a supplier about it at present, need to know which way it comes off the roll before I order, as the lengths required will be different.

[NUTHA JASON]

hey i have exactly the same kit (but 18'' bassdrum). even the same red/silver wrap.

see...
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/1aa.jpg (http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/?start=20#imgAnch26)

and the end result...
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/6aa.jpg (http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/?start=20#imgAnch21)


but i love your idea... of the skuls 'n roses.

j

[Jay.B.]

hahaha bloody hell, I remember that now, I had forgotten what had spurred me on to undertake such a crazy task, I have to thank you for that Jason, you did a sterling job on yours, gonna be a tough act to follow but I'll do my best :-) it's more of an experiment than anything.

hows yours sound now? I bet taking the wrap off made quite a difference in sound, can't wait to get this finished and put some heads back on it...

[NUTHA JASON]

yeah my band weren't convinced until i'd taken the pinstripes it came with with evans coated e2c and tuned it up and miced it up. now i'm replacing the bass heads and doing some art work ... coming soon in pics.

j

[Jay.B.]

OOOoooh them coated EC2 heads are great aren't they, the only one I haven't got coated yet is my 16", the 10, 12, 14 and snare are all coated EC2 now, will be doing the same with these babies. I'll post some pics of the hardware I'm after when I get back sunday night, should be ordering the first bits end of next week :-)

What artwork you got planned for yours?

[jollymosher]

i wish i could post a pic of my drums to show you how crazy good they look now.

It looks hard, and it is. BUT YOU CAN DO IT! just keep working as slowly as you need 2.

You CAN do it!
tomarrow night, im starting prep on the amp that im painting baby blue!

[NUTHA JASON]

im going to make the port hole into a bomb. it'll be finished this arvo and i'll post it then.

j

[Jay.B.]

Nice Bomb J, I need to sort some dice out for my BD head.

Here's some pics of the hardware I've been looking at getting, out of a choice of chrome, black nickel and brass, I'm going for the black nickel, as I think it will suit the look of the kit more.

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[Jay.B.]

Ordered enough fabric to do a test piece and to cover the 12" and 13" toms today, should be here in about a week.

Also ordered some air vents from highwood in the black nickel finish to see if the colour was as nice as it looks in the pics on the site... it actually looks better

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more updates as stuff happens...

[Jay.B.]

Just ordered the tom mounts / floor tom leg brackets

The first big spend on this project since buying the kit
Crazy isn't it, I got the whole 4 shells inc. hardware for £100 and I've just spent £98 on 5 brackets haha

Will be worth it when I get the dam thing finished (be about 6 months at this rate)

EDIT: also when I arrived home just, the fabric I ordered has arrived, so things are hopefully starting to move :-)

[Jay.B.]

first pic to give an idea of how they will look

The fabric is just tacked on with double sided tape at the moment, when the new hardware arrives I will drill the shell then stick it down properly with carpet glue before it gets laquered.

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[Jay.B.]

I had a little experiment with the spray-on carpet glue last night, and lets just say, it didn't go according to plan :-/

Used in the way described on the can (spray on to both sides and alow solvents to evaporate, like any other contact adhesive), yeah it stuck down really well, but it also came through the fabric on to the patterned side making quite a mess.

When I tried spraying just the wood, letting the solvents evaporate then stick the fabric down, it had little more tack than the double sided tape I was using as a temporary measure.

I am considering coating the shell with sanding sealer or an initial coat of laquer and using that to stick the fabric to the shell, it would make trimming the excess from the bearing edges a little more difficult, but is a possibility...

Has anybody got any suggestions as to what else I could use.....??

[secondXheartbeat]

That skull wrap

as our friends from the UK would say

is f@#$ing ace!

[Jay.B.]

haha cheers dude, that's not a bad interpretation :-) in fact is about spot on

[iamtak]

anyone else think fabric will cut down on resonance? I know its basically a wrap, but the wraps on drums are more dense (plastic) and are not woven.

[Jay.B.]

That's the thing you see, when I took the wrap off these shells, it was only glued at either end, which meant that the contact between the wrap and the shell was interfering with the shell resonance.

The plan with the fabric is to make it become one with the laquer and shell so that when the shell resonates, the fabric and laquer does also, yeah I agree up to a point that anything you put on a shell covering wise will have an adverse effect on the shells resonance, which is why I'm experimenting with different ways of sticking the fabric to the shell, it's only a thin cotton fabric, very light, and when laquered, won't deaden the sound any where near as much as the wrap that was on it before.
Plus it's the only way I can find to get the finish I am after.

You will also notice that I am NOT using expensive shells for this project so the resonance issue is nowhere near as important as if I were using top quality shells from keller or highwood.

[hammertone]

The question of wraps interfering with resonance is interesting. The drumwrap company Jammin' Sam (http://www.jamminsam.com) argue that using a hi bond taped seam rather than glue produces no discernible difference in sound.

I have a set of copper clad Slingerlands (bought in 1975) where the very thin copper plating on the metal alloy wrap has corroded horribly from exposure to salt air. I resurrected the old bangers a few months back by taking off the metal covering and recovering them with a cheap black plastic wrap from a local music shop.

Now, whilst I know my hearing is not 100% after 40 years of banging drums and listening to loud music, I could not honestly detect any difference in drum sound between the original metal covering, bare wood and the plastic wrap.

And finally a funny thing: I took the old bangers out for an airing to a few blues gigs and our bass player reckons that the old Slingerlands sound markedly better than my usual beloved Yamaha Maple Customs. Damn! I could have saved myself about half a new car if I'd done this 5 years ago.

[Jay.B.]

It's been a while since I updated this thread,
but it's been a while since there has been anything new to report...

... it is finally moving forward again, but not as originally planned.

A friends bands drummer had a problem with part of his kit falling apart during a gig, he now only uses a bass drum, top tom and snare drum.

So I propositioned him with a re-finished kit of three shells, top tom, floor tom and bass drum.

the 12" 16" and 20" shells are round at another friends industrial unit where he runs his solid wood furniture business from, he is doing final preparation and polishing of the shells for me which will give a nice semi gloss natural birch grain.

The original pearl hardware is polishing up nicely as well (I will be keeping the items of highwood hardware I have purchaced for a future project) an together with the shells should look rather tasty.

All in all I should regain the money spent on this particular project, the price of the original kit and the price of finishing and polishing.

I should have pictures of the finished shells in a couple of weeks, and should be able to get pics of the assembled kit not long after that at one of their gigs.

more updates in the next week or two...

[NUTHA JASON]

looking forward to the pics

[driver]

Nice! I just put a new head on my old Forum snare and cranked it right up and it sounds brillaint as a side snare. I hate its looks though, would love to give a new finish. Looking forward to seeing the finished kit!

[Wegadrummer]

Wow!! Thats just WOW! This is an good example how cool a kit can look if you change wrap..

[Jay.B.]

Update time ... ...

A couple of pics of the progress on the shells.

found out from my wood man that they are birch shells, they have had a coating of a pine water stain, and so far have had 5 or 6 coats of polish, so they are still quite satin looking in finish, he is also polishing the insides of the shels at the same time.Only another 5 or 6 coats to go until they start to take on a nice glossy finish, so about a week and a half before I can start building them back up again WOOHOO!!!

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