Refinishing an early 70s Slingerland cheaply. Advice?

[MuckMuck]

I bought a cheap early 70s Slingerland kit the other day. It's in great shape, but the finish is not original (it's was re-finished in sparkly silver) and there are many, many splits in the new finish around the lugs etc.

Since there doesn't seem to be any way to restore the kit (cosmetically) to anything like it's original state (some form of pearl judging by the internal 'P') I was thinking maybe of just ripping off the silver finish and trying to re-finish it's natural wood (mahogany on the outer ply?)

Would this be a retarded thing to do?

If so why?

Anybody have any better ideas?

[Mediocrefunkybeat]

You could try and find the original wrap on www.jamminsam.com or some other such company that supply wraps. If you were to wrap the kit, it might well prevent problems with the actual woodworking and save you a lot of time. If you can find the correct colour/pattern wrap, there's no reason why it couldn't look at least similar to the original finish.

[crazyhorse]

Pictures? Insides and of the problem areas...

http://www.ghostnote.net and use the search function

[harryconway]

Mahogany is very porous wood so it begs to be wrapped. If you decide to seal, stain or paint it, be aware of that. You can buy very thin veneer, and using it just like a wrap, turn your shells into basically "whatever" wood you want. Carpathian Elm Burl?

[MuckMuck]

Pictures? Insides and of the problem areas...

These splits are typical of what's around the kit.

The guy I bought it from said it had been refinished, which would make sense given the splitting etc wouldn't it?

Somebody else told me they think it's original WMP, but I haven't seen other examples of this sort of damage on original finishes...

What do you think?

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/323/1003589ya4.jpg

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/5933/1003586ol2.jpg

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/7813/1003585bg1.jpg

[MuckMuck]

Bump.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

:)