diegobxr
Silver Member
My 1992 Pearl Export "Restoration" Project (Update: Hi-Res Pics!!)
NOTE: HI-RES PICS OF THE FINAL RESULTS ON POST #14
_____
Hi everybody, just wanted to share with you my latest drum purchase and little project.
A few days ago I bought an early 90's Pearl Export in pretty bad shape and for real cheap. According to the seller, he bought it in 1992.
The kit is a 5-piece: 22"x16", 12"x10", 13"x11", 16"x16" in black wrap, with a steel 14"x6,5" snare. Shells are 9-ply (8-ply Mahogany with an inner Birch ply).
This is how I bought it: Wrap full of dings and scratches. Hoops, rods and all chrome full of rust and pitting. Destroyed heads. And above all things... lots and lots of of dirt.. This kit definitely looks like it was played a lot.
Looks pretty banged up, doesn't it?
Well.. I decided this needed a good cleaning so I started disassembling everything.
After a lot of unscrewing.. I finally stripped the shells from all their hardware, and cleaned and polished the wrapped finish.
Then came the hardest part... removing all the rust and polishing all the chromed parts as much as I could. Hoops, snare, rods and lugs.
Disassembled every single lug, cleaned it and polished it inside out. Used WD-40 on all the rod receivers to clean, lubricate and prevent future corrosion. These are just the snare lugs:
After I finished with all the hardware, I waxed the bearing edges and the inside of the shells, in an attempt to "seal" them. After doing this, you could really notice how much more smooth they were.
(In this pic you can also see how the wrap shine changed)
When I was done with that, I started putting the shells back together..
..And finally re-assembled the kit with fresh heads.
NOTE: HI-RES PICS OF THE KIT FINISHED ON POST #14
The next day.. I got a Pearl logo for the bass drum reso, and put the rack tom on a cymbal stand for better positioning (sorry for the crappy cellphone pics).
The final upgrades I want to make are: wood hoops for the bass drum, a white reso, and an Optimount for the rack tom.
----
And that's it !!!
It was quite a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. I know the pics are kinda crappy but at least you get the idea.
About the kit: I must say I gained a lot of respect for it. It is an old begginer drumset but I must say I'm impressed by it's quality. All the shells are nice, round and solid. Bearing edges aren't smooth as silk but they're not terrible either, at least they're flat. After some cleaning, all the lugs and hardware became shiny again, the chrome didn't die beneath all that dirt, and all the floor tom legs and rack tom holders are solid as a rock.
I'm running coated Emps over Remo UT Ambassadors on the toms and an Evans EQ3 (wow, great head!) over EQ3 reso on the bass drum.
This is not the easiest kit to tune but after some fiddling I must say I got them sounding pretty damn nice, really. The toms sound big and lively and the bass drum has a long, deep sustain to it.
I'm definitely keeping these. They are solid drums, have a classic look, they were cheap, they sound good, they get the job done and I don't have to worry about taking them out and sharing them. They can take the abuse.
I hope you enjoyed this thread and didn't get too bored. Thanks a lot for reading.
Cheers!!
Diego
NOTE: HI-RES PICS OF THE FINAL RESULTS ON POST #14
_____
Hi everybody, just wanted to share with you my latest drum purchase and little project.
A few days ago I bought an early 90's Pearl Export in pretty bad shape and for real cheap. According to the seller, he bought it in 1992.
The kit is a 5-piece: 22"x16", 12"x10", 13"x11", 16"x16" in black wrap, with a steel 14"x6,5" snare. Shells are 9-ply (8-ply Mahogany with an inner Birch ply).
This is how I bought it: Wrap full of dings and scratches. Hoops, rods and all chrome full of rust and pitting. Destroyed heads. And above all things... lots and lots of of dirt.. This kit definitely looks like it was played a lot.
Looks pretty banged up, doesn't it?
Well.. I decided this needed a good cleaning so I started disassembling everything.
After a lot of unscrewing.. I finally stripped the shells from all their hardware, and cleaned and polished the wrapped finish.
Then came the hardest part... removing all the rust and polishing all the chromed parts as much as I could. Hoops, snare, rods and lugs.
Disassembled every single lug, cleaned it and polished it inside out. Used WD-40 on all the rod receivers to clean, lubricate and prevent future corrosion. These are just the snare lugs:
After I finished with all the hardware, I waxed the bearing edges and the inside of the shells, in an attempt to "seal" them. After doing this, you could really notice how much more smooth they were.
(In this pic you can also see how the wrap shine changed)
When I was done with that, I started putting the shells back together..
..And finally re-assembled the kit with fresh heads.
NOTE: HI-RES PICS OF THE KIT FINISHED ON POST #14
The next day.. I got a Pearl logo for the bass drum reso, and put the rack tom on a cymbal stand for better positioning (sorry for the crappy cellphone pics).
The final upgrades I want to make are: wood hoops for the bass drum, a white reso, and an Optimount for the rack tom.
----
And that's it !!!
It was quite a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun. I know the pics are kinda crappy but at least you get the idea.
About the kit: I must say I gained a lot of respect for it. It is an old begginer drumset but I must say I'm impressed by it's quality. All the shells are nice, round and solid. Bearing edges aren't smooth as silk but they're not terrible either, at least they're flat. After some cleaning, all the lugs and hardware became shiny again, the chrome didn't die beneath all that dirt, and all the floor tom legs and rack tom holders are solid as a rock.
I'm running coated Emps over Remo UT Ambassadors on the toms and an Evans EQ3 (wow, great head!) over EQ3 reso on the bass drum.
This is not the easiest kit to tune but after some fiddling I must say I got them sounding pretty damn nice, really. The toms sound big and lively and the bass drum has a long, deep sustain to it.
I'm definitely keeping these. They are solid drums, have a classic look, they were cheap, they sound good, they get the job done and I don't have to worry about taking them out and sharing them. They can take the abuse.
I hope you enjoyed this thread and didn't get too bored. Thanks a lot for reading.
Cheers!!
Diego
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