wow!!! well done , what a mayor improvement!!
I would be grate is you can post how you did it , thaks!!
Sure, here's rhe steps I followed:
I decided to "unwrap" the kit, not knowing what I would find underneath. Kind of like Forrest Gump said; "a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get".
The only shell that didn't really match was the 12x10 rack tom. That didn't really bother me because I'm quite used to a 1 up rack tom setup.
The wrap was taped on only at the vertical seam and in small strips around the top and bottom right below the bearing edges. With the help of a hair dryer set on LOW heat and going SLOW, it came off all in one piece on each shell. To avoid having to put in new breather hole grommets, I used a Laboratory hole cutter that's used to cut small round holes in rubber stoppers.(I work in a Materials Research Lab for the State Roads Dept.). Found one that just fit over the grommet and cut the wrap flush with the edges.
After the wrap was off I used "Goof Off" and mineral spirits to remove the glue residue. This took some time to get all of it off so the stain would take properly.
I used flexible sanding pads so as not to leave any flat spots in the shells, going finer with each sanding and finishing with 220 grit, followed by a tack cloth to remove all the dust.
I decided to give the shells a natural stained look rather than a re-wrap for two reasons; 1. I have two other kits, Tama Superstars EFX in White Satin Haze wrap and '75 Ludwig Vistalites in "Tequila Sunrise" tri color acrylic.
2. Staining was less expensive than ordering new wrap for all 5 shells.
I did order new wood bass hoops to replace the black painted metal ones and a Ludwig Vintage logo bass reso head.
Each shell got 2 coats of the Minwax "Red Sedona" wipe on stain with a dry time of 24 hours between coats, followed by 3 coats of the Minwax high gloss wipe on poly with a dry time of 24 hours and a light sanding with 0000 steel wool and tack cloth between coats. I also put 3 coats of the poly on the interior of the shells also.
These drums did not have any type of gaskets between the lug casings and the shells like my other kits, so I made my own. I traced the outline of all the hardware pieces on heavy "tag" or poster board to make the templates, (see pic). I used black non slip shelf liner, (Wal-Mart) and a Yellow china marking pencil to trace the outline of the gaskets onto the liner material. A paper hole punch was the right size for the holes. I also packed all the lug casings with felt to eliminate noise from the springs, (see pic).
When all the shells were dry, reassemble using the new gaskets, wax the bearing edges with parifin wax, put on new heads and dial them in. I did put a small felt strip near the bottom of the kick reso head to get the sound I wanted.
All in all, this was a fun project. At age 57, I'm now into "vintage" drums, much to my wife's dismay.