Refinishing hardware / shell on snare drum.

[SarahSimm]

On 3/24/2006 at 4:39 AM, Jumpin2drums said:

I do not have a lot to add myself to this, as the only complete overhaul of a drum I ever did myself was an old 1940 Ludwig snare with wooden hoops I have, which came out beautiful without sanding needed.

There is a fellow on our snare line however that bought 10 old beaten up drums one by one off eBay, and went a bit beyond restoration, which we use for our group, as seen in the pic below. He's taken TDR's totally restored them, including recovering as discussed above, as well as restoring all the hardware, replacing it where necessary, and added a Ludwig HV-model twist to them, as well as to our rudimental bass drums, and the snares and basses sound awesome, though my opinion is slightly slanted toward the sound of the older drums. Not to go off in a tangent, in my opinion, all highly cranked high-tension drums now sound like a piece of wood, instead of an acoustical percussion instrument. I'm sure you can get all the answers you need here from what I've read, but if you need questions answered from this guy, his userID is vschaff on our forum accessible via our site, gnodca.org, though he is not always actively accessing the forum, but I can get in touch with him if you need.

Here's the pic of the restored drums, I just have to share with y'all.

GNODCA (Echoes Drum & Bugle Corps) Mardi Gras 2006

As jordanjames decided to somehow give this thread a second life I have a few words to say as well

this comment above is correct whereas this

On 1/27/2021 at 1:51 AM, jordanjames said:

All you have to do is paint it, then cure it with a heat gun for every layer, then put a layer of clear coat and cure that is well. It will not come off easily. 

is not

 

you don't just paint it and cure with a heat gun unless you want to have a third-rate old grandpa's snare from BC era.

The procedure of restoration is much more complex than that 

[Weaklefthand4ever]

On 3/16/2006 at 3:42 PM, MikeN said:

Hey, all -

I recently got gifted an old marching snare (Premier pipe band model - pre-free floating) that's in bad shape, cosmetically. Hardware's okay, but the wrap on the shell is showing its age.

I'd like to remove the wrap and stain the wood, as well as see if I couldn't laquer the hardware to change it to a gold/brass finish.

Has anyone done that before - is there an easily obtained (like Home Depot easy) paint / lacquer that would let me do that? I'm curious to hear from anyone that's done a custom job like this before. I'm also looking for some type of laquer or poly to protect the stained shell - any suggestions?

Thanks for any and all advice!

Mike

Mike,

I never saw this post and since it is indeed, on it's second life.

Before I started building pool cues, I worked for a drum builder for number of years. I do a LOT of finish work so I'm lucky enough to have some knowledge in the area.

One of the nice things about the HTS-284's and 400's is that they barely (and I mean BARELY) glued the coverings on those drums. I've probably refinished / recovered 20 of the things (I have a 484 myself.) If you are going to put on a finish over the bare wood, understand that you MAY run into a play that isn't maple or birch. If you do and you still want a really fine finish, you can use a very thin crystal clear epoxy (West systems makes a really good one that doesn't yellow. Feel free to message me for details.) 3 thin coats should be plenty and it won't effect the vibration of the shell. You will want to sand everything smooth between each coat. Remember that all we are doing is filling any voids and sealing wood. If you intend to put a stain on the shell, obviously you will want to do this before epoxy coats. I would HIGHLY suggest using a dye stain on maple or birch. 

As far as top coats go, you COULD do a rattle can job. But I have a different suggestion. After 20 years of spraying automotive finish on pool cues, I have developed a LOT of allergies to finishes and various exotic wood dusts. I discovered Brite Tone Instrument Finish through a good friend and fellow cue builder. You are looking for the high solids version in the black mini-pail. You can get it at wood craft. It brushes on and is non-toxic. 10 coats with about 4 hours drying between each coat and you will have a finish that easily rivals an automotive top coat like Imron. I typically sand between every 3 coats and wet sand the final coat. Polish it out with 2400 (I go all the way down to 12,000 for pool cues) and a good automotive wax and you will have an AMAZING finish that is hard but still flexible. 

Let me know how it works out!