Fantastic find! Custom Classic Kit Review

I've ordered True Black Glass Glitter wrap for these drums from JamminSam's, currently have them completely disassembled and have rounded all the bearing edges slightly while applying successive coats of low-gloss Fomby's tung oil. I also removed the inferior floor tom leg mounts and used wood filler on the holes. I'm not going to reinstall better mounts on this drum, but will use the isolation basket mount I already have. In the end, I'll have approximately $700 in these drums, which ain't much, really--for an extremely nice sounding and beautiful little jazz kit. The main reason I decided to wrap the drums, is that the black high polish lacquer finish retains fingerprints easily, and when I attempted to clean the shells with a touch of dishwater soap on a soft damp cloth, it basically ruined the finish, leaving large streaks that I couldn't remove. So it isn't that great of a lacquer job--beware.
 
To me this drum set sounds like it's too problematic to bother with, and I don't say that about many different kits.

Dennis
That is a valid point. Even if you don't care about the finish that much because it will be your beater kit, No one wants problems with hardware.
Manufacturers like Tama and Pearl, and many others put good hardware on their cheap kits.

You have to weigh that if you are thinking about one of these kits.
 
Over the past week I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a "beater kit." At least for me, there isn't. At first I thought that because of the low price of these drums I'd be free to just throw them into the back seat of my car and generally not care too awfully much for them. But you see, I see to have had this certain, how shall I say, LOVE of drums for my entire life, so as it turns out--these CC drums are going to have a nice black glass glitter finish, there's going to sound very good, and they're going to be taken to gigs in cases just like my other drums would be.
 
Over the past week I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a "beater kit." At least for me, there isn't. At first I thought that because of the low price of these drums I'd be free to just throw them into the back seat of my car and generally not care too awfully much for them. But you see, I see to have had this certain, how shall I say, LOVE of drums for my entire life, so as it turns out--these CC drums are going to have a nice black glass glitter finish, there's going to sound very good, and they're going to be taken to gigs in cases just like my other drums would be.
Thats true, I use the term, but I don't really mean it! I feel the same way.
 
Wow Flam sorry you are not having good luck with your kit. So far only problems I have had are the couple I mentioned below. Hopefully that will be the only ones but time will tell. I wiped mine down with a cotton rag and moistened with some windex and had no problem.
 
Originally my kit shipped with the floor tom having a crack in the inner ply due to an over zealous screw gun operator, which Sigler promptly replaced!
I have zero problems..and for the small outlay, this kit sounds AWESOME!
I love this kit!!!

Customclassicprobirchamici011.jpg

Customclassicprobirchamici004.jpg

Customclassicprobirchamici012.jpg
 
Last edited:
. The main reason I decided to wrap the drums, is that the black high polish lacquer finish retains fingerprints easily, and when I attempted to clean the shells with a touch of dishwater soap on a soft damp cloth, it basically ruined the finish, leaving large streaks that I couldn't remove. So it isn't that great of a lacquer job--beware.

I have to question your decision to use dishsoap on a lacquer finish?????

The lacquer job on these shells is very nice IMHO.

Use a finish enhancer/polish suited for lacquered wood or a mild multi surface cleaner like Pledge Multi Surface and wipe with a microfiber cloth.
Sorry bro, but you got what you deserved! Dishsoap..?? really???

I have had no such problems with breaking wingbolts etc. Are you sure you didn't just overtighten??
 
Pearly...what did you use for your bass drum port reinforcements?
 
how are those Amici cymbals? compareable to higher end stuff from the big 3? Or more like Xs20, ZHT, Alpha quality?
 
Pearly...what did you use for your bass drum port reinforcements?

Hey Masheanhed, I am using (2) 2" DrumOS ports.. standard stuff. Have them in there to let the little bugger breathe. And for micing
 
Ah, Ok. Dish soap. Well anyway, I'm still applying tung oil to the interior of the shells and the black glass glitter has arrived. I've also slightly rounded off the bearing edges and afterward placed all the shells on a large round wall mirror, placed on my kitchen table, to check the edges, which appear to be perfect. Dish soap. Didn't realize they put sulfuric acid in that stuff.
 
Ah, Ok. Dish soap. Well anyway, I'm still applying tung oil to the interior of the shells and the black glass glitter has arrived. I've also slightly rounded off the bearing edges and afterward placed all the shells on a large round wall mirror, placed on my kitchen table, to check the edges, which appear to be perfect. Dish soap. Didn't realize they put sulfuric acid in that stuff.

I just was implying that there are alot better choices for cleaning agents to use on a gloss lacquered finish..than the bottle of Dawn under the sink ... even furniture polish would have been more logical.. oh wait, you probably used that up on your last load of laundry.. lol
 
Flam: Coating the inside with tung oil isn't going to do anything for you... Especially not "warming" up the sound. Just so you know... Plus the easiest way to round down edges would be to glue some sandpaper to a sheet of mdf and spin the shells on the sandpaper. Anything higher than 320 grit is overkill, you can control how much you take off by how much downward pressure you put on the shell.

Typically drum builders agree that putting coats of a hardening finish on the inside of shells will increase ring and brightness... I'm of the opinion that it doesn't make THAT much of a difference but at most I only put a single light coat inside drums I build just to seal the wood.

With my wife out of a job at the moment and my soon to come segment kit still being in the form of boards of beautiful wood I'm probably grabbing one of these little kits since I sold my Taye kit (Still kicking myself) a while back. Its kinda funny selling 1 drum for more than the shell pack of this kit costs but hopefully it won't be the worst sounding kit I've ever owned and I can flip it once the segment kit is done. I'm pretty confident any kit can get to sounding decent with the right heads, etc.
 
Best? Nah... not even close. The best kit I will ever own will be of my own design. Built by my own hands and the lightest kit on the planet. One of these days I will own my own magnesium alloy kit.

While I'm sure these are great intermediate level drums I doubt they will be near as good as my former Taye Studio Maple kit and I know they won't come close to the segment kit I'll own here shortly (assuming Francois gets his lathe up and running)

Bang for the buck? Sure... otherwise I wouldn't be buying one. For me it's entirely a financial decision in that I will have a playable, decent sounding kit that I can flip when my real kit is done. I've got pretty high standards considering I build drums ;) Oh speaking of that.. a lot of the hardware on these drums looks like the Worldmax stuff.
 
Hey guys, and thanks dkerwood! There is the 7-piece birch kit as well as the 5-piece, which are the same shells but with the thru-shell mounts, which suck indeed. Avoid these. The Pro Birch Hybrid, Jazz, and Maple all have iso mounts tho, very nice ones at that. The hardware is VERY heavy duty - the tom mounting system is identical to the ones on OCDP Venice, Avalon, and Newport kits. And it's definitely not a 6-lug kick or floor, in fact every shell bigger than 12" on this kit has 8. Check the photo, and count carefully. The Catalina stuff is gorgeous, and this set is 100% on par with them, if not a little nicer. Which Cat/what finish did you get? The Maples in Deep Amber were my second choice, but I decided to take the leap on the CCs (and I'm glad I did, but the Cats still rock, i'd love to get one someday... club jazz in walnut glaze, maybe?) I'm going tomorrow to do photos and a low-res cell phone video if I can. Bear with me here...

drumhammerer: link to Ebay post for the Natural finish... CCs on Ebay

I love Gretsch and just sold my deep amber cat maple's because the claw hardware on the kick kept breaking. I called and went into guitar center and they refered me to thier distributor in cali and they sent me a crap load of claws, tension rods . The hardware sucks on gretsch cats and I have been playing for 45 years and have never seen the likes. I own pearl, slingerland, ludwig, tama, rogers, even my sons Pacific and all I ever had was rust on my kits hardware. You would think Gretsch wouldn't tarnish there name.
So with that being said is cc built good with decent actual drum hardware ?
 
I just was implying that there are alot better choices for cleaning agents to use on a gloss lacquered finish..than the bottle of Dawn under the sink ... even furniture polish would have been more logical.. oh wait, you probably used that up on your last load of laundry.. lol

I emailed Johnsons Wax (Pledge) and they would not recommend their product on lacquered wooden drums. Just a head s up.
 
I emailed Johnsons Wax (Pledge) and they would not recommend their product on lacquered wooden drums. Just a head s up.

Thanks for the heads up GD!

I just mentioned it because it seemed more logical than dishsoap. ; )
 
I love Gretsch and just sold my deep amber cat maple's because the claw hardware on the kick kept breaking. I called and went into guitar center and they refered me to thier distributor in cali and they sent me a crap load of claws, tension rods . The hardware sucks on gretsch cats and I have been playing for 45 years and have never seen the likes. I own pearl, slingerland, ludwig, tama, rogers, even my sons Pacific and all I ever had was rust on my kits hardware. You would think Gretsch wouldn't tarnish there name.
So with that being said is cc built good with decent actual drum hardware ?

I have had my CC for a few months with no complaints.
 
Back
Top