Hey Guys,
Don't knock those Maxwin kits. I purchased a Maxwin kit piece by piece over eBay to refurb and sell as a pet project. Most of the pieces were in sad ass shape...but cheap and workable. The 14" x 20" bass was missing hoops, lugs, claws, and rods, some bright boy masked off the 8" x 12" rack tom and painted the wrap with light blue latex house paint, and the 14"x14" floor tom's bearing edges were some mouse's chew toy in a barn up in New York state for a few years. The 6" x 14" 10 lug COS snare was a mint bargain that I bought for $35.00 from a doctor on eBay who took meticulous care of it, and it looks and sounds great!
I stripped all the shells, recut the edges, filled any imperfections, sanded all shells to 800 grit in and out, stained, oiled, and sealed them, and left them to cure. In the meantime, I bought some upgraded hardware off of eBay like DW Pacific spurs, black maple bass hoops, chrome air vent grommets, plus all the missing hardware. After all the new hardware arrived, it was added to the existing stuff, and got cleaned and polished too. All shells got new white wraps, and got reassembled complete. I topped them off with new Evans coated G1's on the tops, Evans Ebonys on the bottoms, a 20" EMAD on the bass drums batter side, and an Evan's Ebony Pearl logo head on the front that I made myself with a dry transfer from Bodo10 on eBay. All the stands, throne, and pedals are Dixon light weight 700 and 800 series items, all the cymbals are used Zildjian ZHT's found on eBay at reasonable prices, and the cowbells and wood block are LP's.
Although this kit is nothing when compared to my higher end Tama and Pearl kits, it turned out great! It's small, portable, and easy to set up. It looks great in the white with chrome and black, and that's really nice for those corporate penguin parties! Because the toms and bass are made of Phillipine mahagony and have 45 degree edges, they have that really warm, deep, fat, rounded, vintage sound...and the steel snare cracks like a machine gun! All things considered...it really didn't cost me outrageous money because I did all the work myself, and I have the perfect 4 piece Be Bop kit to play my blues, jazz, and small gigs on. Will it be for sale now? Probably not, I'm to happy with the results. My cousin liked it so much, we're constructing a similar kit for him!
Don't knock those old Maxwin kits...with a little work in your spare time, and a few wisely spent dollars on eBay and Craig's List, they can turn out pretty good, and not cost ya your life savings! Think of it in these terms: It's like buying an old clunker at the junk yard, restoring it, and bringing it back to life. While it may not be a 65 G.T.O., it'll at least be a nice ride that everyone likes, but sounds a whole lot better! You can do this with any kit, and the satisfaction is your's because you did it! If you need a little inspiration, check out the first two pics in my photo album of the kit...I think you'll like what you see. Enjoy!