Well, I have made a bit of progress on the Gretsch kit this past weekend. All the tom shells have had their bearing edges sanded down and have received their first cuts (outside roundover). I hope to have the inside 30 degree cut finished on them by the end of the week. Hopefully I can get a bit of time at night to work on this. I still need to sand down the bass and snare drum shells, but I'm holding off on those until I'm done with these. I have way too many drums that are disassembled and scattered all throughout the basement. Hardware, rims, heads, etc. all over the place. Its a mess. An organized mess, but still a mess.
After the edges are cut, they will get hand sanded smooth, shellaced/sanded, shellaced/sanded, then waxed. I'm thinking of tung oiling the insides as well, but I'm not sure yet. Its just another thing to do, and it involves sanding the shell interiors, which I'm not looking forward to. I may still do it just because I have all the hardware off the kit at this time. I don't know. I guess I have a little time to think about it.
The Tama kit is coming along as well. Got the last wraps all set up for installation. I just need to score the back side of them so they bend a bit easier around the smaller diameter shells. Then I get to do all their edges as well. Ugg... Photos of that will come in the future. For now, here are some Gretsch progress photos. (sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.)