I have a couple of pitted Supras.Thanks for the idea

Red- Shop prices at several plating shops before committing to one of them. You'll be surprised by how much prices for the same job can vary from shop to shop. Your best bet is; if you know a good motorcycle shop or vintage car restoration place, they send out a lot of small parts for stripping, polishing and re-chroming. You'll get your best deal/price from them. They'll just include your shell in the next batch they send in and charge you accordingly. Because it'll be part of a bulk shipment of parts, you'll pay less for the same work.

Greenglass - the tube lugs are chrome over brass, I got them from Worldmax awhile ago, and decided to use them on this shell.

John

[QUOTE=Purdie Shuffle;136733].....are all going to have bad acne cases in just a few years.

Purdie, not necessarily. Some do, some don't. I have asked on this forum "why?". The answer seems to be "it depends" on what day it was made, what shop did the chrome, and subsequent owner maintenance. Here's my 1963 Supra...no pits...(well, a couple on the bearing edge you can't see). Not to say that it will never happen, but so far, so good.

[Strangely, adding the tubes dried the drum out a little more than it already was. I 'almost' put the Imperials back on. But the sound of this one is so right-on, I didn't want to mess with it anymore. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!]

Regarding the tube lugs, yes, I have a badly pitted Supra that I had powered coated and installed tube lugs. I love the sound of it. It's actually my second favorite snare (to the original 1963) and the one I now use the most.

My 79/80 402 has zero pitting, been in So Cal all its life.

Very nice! Clapping Happy2

The sixties Keystone Acrolites came with a "burnished", unplated shell of the same formula "Ludalloy" material. They are nice looking drums...maybe you've brought out the best qualities of the Ludalloy here?

The Ludwig "Standard" of the late 60's came the same way, with an unplated, all aluminum shell, although not highly polished like this.

Ludwig could have stuck with the chrome plated brass shell of the early Supras but the cost! Plating over an aluminum alloy material has never really worked well for Ludwig but there are some really nice unpitted drums out there..such as the one above.

Looks like you found a nice solution to the most wonderful snare ever! Some restorers have even powder coated (as mentioned above) pitted Supras with nice results..

-kellyj

The fact that ludwig continues to use that same chrome over ludalloy just makes me shake my head. Kind of like ludwig continuing to use the 5" drum tube lugs on their 6.5x14 drums? And then they use the correct longer tube lugs on their economy 6.5 black magic? What the hell is up with that?

5" tube lugs on the 6.5" BB 100th anniversary? Really? That is the one thing that kept me from buying the 100th. Sorry to digress. Hit a hot button.

Stripping the pitted chrome and polishing the aluminum shell really paid off on this Supra, but it got me thinking. Has anyone here ever tried stripping the chrome off a brass shell and then buffing or soft-brushing the brass? I've got a badly pitted Dynasonic I used for parts, and this might be an interesting way to bring it back to life. Brass, like aluminum is soft and susceptible to scratches (more than hard chrome) but few of us ever expose our restored snares to the hazards of scratching.

John, your always thinking outside the box. Your supra looks fabulous. If my 67 ever pits, I'll go down the trail you have blazed. Right now, it still looks new.

Powertone - Re: your comment: ... my sentiments precisely!

Mchair303 - See photo! It 'was' a chrome over brass shell (Oliver Ditson drum circa 1910.) but the chrome had been chemically damaged along the way. There was no way to save it. I took it to my plater and had him strip the damaged chrome and polish the raw brass. You see the results in the photo. The first shot is the 'before' photo the second one is after stripping and polishing.

mfry55 - (Hey bud! Nice to see you posting here!) As I said earlier... I don't get why Ludwig doesn't simply polish their aluminum shells to a high luster and be done with it. They could save all that $ that goes to pay for a complicated plating process (first they have to lay down copper, then nickel and then the chrome,) and, they would avoid all the pitting problems if they'd only polish the raw shells. I don't get it.

*Nice to see a post from an old friend... Clapping Happy2

John

BTW, this is what the 1910 Oliver Ditson drum looks like finished...

I enjoy the challenge of saving worthy drums from the trash heap. This is one I'm proud of. You see what it looked like when I got it.

Note: the only things I replaced were the lugs, of which four were cracked and not replaceable. I used 8 Ego single point mount lugs which were very close in appearance to the originals.

John