My congrats, Gilnar !!

Khm-mm... Once more I see that now is still really possible to find some AMATI in a very good condition !

Last month one guy find AMATI orange sparkle in the "Culture's House" at small Ukranian town - it's a full set, with all hardware, cymbals and even 4 sticks in celluloid pocket. All are absolutely new, packaging in cardboards with 70's selling's documents... :SHOCK:

Real finder always find...

Sometimes I think - maybe me will planning a search-tour to impregnable vintage drums country Ukraine ?? :)

George.

Haha, "they call me the seeker"

So here's some more photos.

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/white_kit2.jpg[/IMG]

12" Shell interior:

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/shell.jpg[/IMG]

Snare's edge:

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/edge.jpg[/IMG]

12" again. It's two layers of 3ply, bent, with seams against each other. You can see that the manufacturing process wasn't very precise...

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/Edge2.jpg[/IMG]

This is supposed to be a snare bed! Gotta work on it some. There are similar "beds" on the 12" but I believe they are "just" imperfections of the edge.

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/snare_edge.jpg[/IMG]

FT inside stamp. Wonder what it means. There are also capital letters stamped inside each shell. Earlier 3 ply drums had all "H", but these newer models also have other letters. Wonder what that means...

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/FT_stamp.jpg[/IMG]

Old heads are practically useless. I put some used coated Emperors as batters and coated Ambassador as a resonant for the rack tom (still gotta get one bigger hoop for the FT, until then, reso stays original.) They have deep and THUMPY sound, thanks to those far-from-perfect edges, I believe. They won't be much suitable for ska, wich is what I play mostly, but quite alright for hard rock, wich is indeed what I'd love to play more. So it's not all that bad, I think!

Great find,those have lot's of character.The last photo looks like the inner ply is Beech wood.

Thank you for posting those great detail pics!

So, at last I got the snare into playable condition.

As you can see from photos below, strainer mechanism is elegant, but kinda primitive. Lever is at one point and finer tightening is on the other, so both points are moving. Add that to the fact that you have to TIE the snare cord there and you got extremly inpractical and difficult to use system, but after some problems I managed to get it working. Original strainer was very buzzy and clumsy, now I'm using some cheap Sonor strainer that is a leftover from my Force 2007 kit and it sounds considerably better, altough it still has some annoying buzz. I hope to fix that by re-cutting the snare beds wich are unbelievably shoddy.

Also, as you might see on the second pic, that hexagonal screw has the hole for the cord drilled in such way that it goes kinda askew through it, thus diverting the strainer. I'm not sure about what I'm going to do with that - I might turn the screw so that the hole is exactly facing the shell and then pull both ends of the cord through and tie them. Well, I'll see about that tomorrow, now my neighbours would go crazy if I started hitting the snare.

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/IMG_3770.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img1.rajce.idnes.cz/d0103/4/4412/4412091_b50cfdc073137e0ecf7ef5c6a45e4991/images/IMG_3769.jpg[/IMG]

I now have modern heads on most of the kit and it sounds quite well, altough it's nothing amazing. I think it could be compared it to MIJ kits from the same era. The 12" mounted tom was quite a disappointment - it has very uneven and rough edges. I'm unsure about what to do with it. Whole kit is in original condtition, so I don't want to re-cut the edges, altough they're not perfect (I guess they're suppoed to be full roundover, but they are something else... not really sure what).

In spite of this, I'm very happy about the kit and hopefully, I'll soon be able to post some crappy camera-made soundfile.

Stay groovy!

Gilnar

That snare throw is just like the base model George Way/Camco set up.My early 60's Oaklawn Camco snare had one originally,but was replaced by a previous owner.

Trueing up the shells is not a big deal.I find a 4X4 piece of 3/4 finish plywood and staple 4-6 sheets of sandpaper to the finish surface,in order to utilize the flattest,smoothest base for the trueing process.Then I turn the drum edge around on the sandpaper until the edge is flat and uniform.Returning a roundover edge is simple-just fold a sheet of sandpaper into quarters and go around the edge with long strokes.Check your work on a glass countertop-it should sit perfectly flat with no light gaps.

My typical snare bed is 1 3/4"-2" wide by 1/4"-5/16"deep.I pencil it onto the inside of the shell and cut it in carefully with a file,and taper the ends back into the "bead"of the bearing edge over another 1/2".Then round it over to the same edge as the rest of the drum.

Those are really nice drums,and I LOVE roundover bearing edges!

So... for those of you who asked how it sounds, here ya go!

Please note that I'm no great drummer. I present the drums, not myself. The FT has original reso, wich doesn't help the sound much and I don't use the original ride. But you can hear the Amati ride in one of my other videos - it's not the exact same one, but they sound almost the same. I use Balbex 7A sticks here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiwVyeRB5r8&feature=youtu.be

Just checked out the video. Great job buddy! The restore went very well. Those sound sweet!

Nice chops as well! Cool1

Thanks man! They aren't restored :D Edges are still poor, so are snare beds and the plies are splitting at few spots, but ONE DAY, yeah, you know...