As some of you might have seen....Im looking for a 16 inch WMP 16x16 floor tom to go with this kit. The previous owner's dad did a number on them in the 60's. Ill explain.
The story seems to be that dude bought this kit as a kid (The WFL New Classic Model I think) which didn't come with a floor tom, but it DID come with the New Classic/Ray Mckinley Snare! (score!) Later he added a floor, but it is a 1965 Ludwig Blue/Silver Duco floor. Soon he was style conscious enough to realize that he wanted his drums to match, and since the WMP was getting "yellow" which he didnt like, he decided to wrap the whole kit in this Turquoise contact paper.
He took the badges off to to the job, but thank the lord (if there is a lord) that he took the badges off CAREFULLY and then replaced them after doing the deed....so all of the original badges and grommets are present.
Last night I cleaned up the rack tom. It has some cracking in the pearl, but you can't see it from a foot away and in fact I think it gives some nice character to the kit. Two extra holes on the 13 from a 50's Slingerland floor tom leg mount that he used as a "L" arm mount to go on the 60's Ludwig consolette he added to the bass drum. Trying to decide what to do to fix that. Ill need some inlays (probably just do some Precision drum antique wmp unless someone has a better idea) and Ill need to wrestle the contact paper off of the rest of the bass drum and the floor tom.
The plan is (hopefully) to get the floor looking nice and sell it to finance my matching floor. If the paper comes off of the Duco okay, it will be a very nice drum. Its parts are 100% original including both heads, red BB muffler, legs, etc etc.
As sort of mentioned above the bass drum has a couple of mods, which I don't mind. It seems like he added Slingerland 50's skinny spurs, a 60's Ludwig rail consolette, and two 50's Gretsch cymbal mounts placed ala Buddy. They were all done very well, and give the drum some cool flare and functionality that I dig.
Obviously with the badges having been removed and the mods, this one is not a collector, but with some love I think it is going to be a fantastic player kit. Sizes are 24/13/16 with Ray Mckinley 6.5x14 snare. Front of the bass drum still has original calf head. Also has the original Speed King pedal and WFL flat base snare stand with all three round feet.
Im excited to get at it. Already cleaned up the rack a little last night. Today I am going to start with the tape removal. I don't think it will be too tough. All the hardware is in really nice shape....no rust or anything. Sorry about the crappy pictures. It was late last night. Ill get better ones as I get at this sucker!
-Adam
