Potsy - Here's a photo of one of Levon's woody kits and what I think Teverson was referring to.

John

Ahh, very cool. I also saw this one I really liked:

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=21298&highlight=levon

Update on this kit: I got back around to working on it, and have made some good progress. The paint stripping was horrible, and took 3 solid days. There were multiple layers of paint and primer. 3 of the toms had original granitone as the bottom layer. I tried 3 different strippers to get through the granitone (that is some tough stuff!), citristrip worked the best on it. Even after all that, there was no way to get the interiors interiors good enough to leave clear. The wood under the granitones wasn't very nice anyway.

Here is the new problem. Remember when I thought that the bass drum was maple outer ply? I was right. And guess what citristrip did to the maple-- it turned it orange. WTF. Not evenly orange either, all blotchy and horrible. So the hoops and the shell are all jacked up. Plus the two toms that had maple interiors now have orange maple interiors. The plan was to stain the maple bass drum to match the mahogany and then use wipe on poly. The stain might be dark enough that the orange won't show through. We'll see. I wanted to leave the hoops unstained, but that option is out the window.

I'm going to have to paint the interiors granitone after all, but it's still good that I stripped them first. 1 layer of paint is ok, but 5 is pushing it.

Has anyone ever tried bleaching wood before? Any tips would be helpful. I already tried lots of other methods to remove the orange tint (other strippers, after wash, mineral spirits, sanding).

There are some products out there though its been a while since I used them and can't remember the names! I refinished a dark stained maple table some years ago and used a wood bleach to get it as close to original as possible, worked really good.

I read that chlorine bleach is the best to remove dye based stains. I don't know if that's what this is, but probably. That would be laundry bleach, but you can make a super strong solution out of swimming pool chlorine.

chlorine bleach will only do so much. It might work on the citrisrip stains but I know it won't work on naturally dark patches on maple. I tried that years ago. There are kits made specifically for bleaching wood. The chemicals are a lot nastier than chlorine bleach but they work.

http://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/finishes/get-the-color-out-with-wood-bleach/

I personally only use the old fashioned Methyl Ethyl Choride strippers on drums. You have to be more careful with it and it is toxic but it will work faster and won't raise the grain or stain the wood. I use some other safer strippers for stripping paint on house trim or woodwork and it works great. Since drums are mostly made of laminated wood that you want to look good if you are going with a natural finish, I don't like to use them because they have to stay on a lot longer and can cause a lot more work once the paint is off. I have stripped the granitone off successfully with the MEC types of stripper. The stuff in an aerosol seems to be stronger than the jell type that comes in a gallon container. I prefer to use the jell because it is easier to control where it goes.

Bleach is very bad for wood ( despite many deck cleaners claims). I use Murphy's wood soap to clean wood surfaces. I'm not sure if it will fix your problem, but it is safe.

larry:2Cents:

Wood bleach works well on solid wood, but I don't think I'd touch laminated ply with it.

Have you totally ruled out covering the drums? My gut is that whatever looks splotchy now will look splotchy with stain too. Especially maple. If you do decide to try staining it, consider using wood conditioner beforehand.

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17411

If you clean bare wood with Murphy's you will never be able to apply a finish to the wood. It will prevent the finish from sticking to the wood.