Refinishing wrapped drums into natural finish - (Mega-thread)

diegobxr

Silver Member
Hey everybody! Well, I wanted to share with you this little project I finished yesterday, in case some of you may want to do it too someday or just for the sake of looking at some drums.

Warning: This is gonna be one long thread with tons of pics.

Ok, I'll try to make it as brief as possible. Let's get started.

A few weeks ago I bought this old Pacific (pdp) drumset, It's a three-piece, 22"/12"/16". I don't even know what model is it or what wood is it made of, and the lugs are different than the actual ones.

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As soon as I got them I started dismantling them. Took off all the hoops, heads and lugs and started removing the wrap.

Bass drum:

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Luckily for me, these were glued only at the ends of the wrap, not all over the shell, and came out easily with a little help from a knife.

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Then, of course, I did the same with the floor tom and rack tom. Here's the floor tom:

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The glue leaves this ugly residue on the shells. I tried with alcohol and paint thinner but that didn't do too much. I ended up just sanding it off the best I could.

Before:

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After:

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"Sanding, sanding and more sanding" is the name of the game here.

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After a few hours, this is how the shells looked like:

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___

Ok, the next day, it was time to paint.

First, I covered every single hole and the bearing edges with painter's tape and then added some newspaper inside. This is the rack tom:

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Then I painted with a brush. Of course, you don't want any brush-marks on your finish, that looks extremely cheap, so.. someone taught me that what you gotta do is: Just after you finish painting with the brush, you take a little piece of soft cloth and wipe the shell gently, always following the direction of the wood grain.

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And this is how the shells looked like after just painted:

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___

Next step: the uglyest one. Drilling holes for a tom mount.

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Then.. the bass drum hoops. They're metal. Black metal hoops look terrible on natural-finished drums. The ideal would've been buying wood hoops, but I couldn't find any, so for now, I decided to paint these in a lighter colour.

Black hoop:

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Painted hoop:

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___

After the paint was nice and dry, I sanded the shells once again, this time with very fine-grit sand paper (320 and 1200 grit).

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Finally, I started putting everything together again.

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We then add some heads, stands and cymbals...
 
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... And the end result is this:

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So.. that's it. :) What do you think?? I'm pretty pleased with the results, but I'd love to hear your opinions. :)

Thanks for reading!

Cheers! :)
 
that is very nice. 100 percent improvement. And you were very lucky that the wrap was only glued on the ends. You didn't have any laminate peel from the shells. I am going to say that they look so much better that they have to sound better. Great JOB
 
I'm sure you're aware of those wraps which you simply stick over the existing shells- but these look way nicer than those wraps could ever look - great job!
 
Ummm, honestly... I would have recovered them again, or used a wood finish ply.

It looks like a set that was wrapped originally, then de-skin'd and finished w/o an outer ply, only b/c I've seen this done many times b/f.
 
that is very nice. 100 percent improvement. And you were very lucky that the wrap was only glued on the ends. You didn't have any laminate peel from the shells. I am going to say that they look so much better that they have to sound better. Great JOB

I'm sure you're aware of those wraps which you simply stick over the existing shells- but these look way nicer than those wraps could ever look - great job!

Hey Gruntersdad, Todd, thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate your comments! Thx for reading. :)


Ummm, honestly... I would have recovered them again, or used a wood finish ply.

It looks like a set that was wrapped originally, then de-skin'd and finished w/o an outer ply, only b/c I've seen this done many times b/f.

Hi there man, well, I actually like how they turned out but I definitely get what your saying. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read and comment, I appreciate it. :)

Cheers!
 
nice job, they look sweet. I would get a different hoop on the kick, but other than that can't complain. look good. have fun with em.
 
They look great; nice job. Replace the bass drum hoops, and it will look like a top-notch set. Enjoy them. Peace and goodwill.
 
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