Each to their own - I love the way Gold Sparkle looks with the Green and gold

Me too the gold sparkle looks cool.

Just wanted to join in, here. I love the idea of your build and cannot wait to see your finish pics. Great job and great tribute, Kona.

B

I think the painter hit the color spot on. Gold sparkle is the traditional inlay on the bd hoops. It looks so classy and the green/gold combination can't be beat. That's going to be an amazing looking kit when you're done.

Are you going to re-paint the interiors silver?

John

My shells were made before the silver sealer shells came online so won't be adding that. Cadillac Green shells with the gold hardware are in the 58 Gretsch catalog and that's about the time gretsch made the big switch from 3ply to 6ply and added silver sealer. Drums before 58 probably did not have silver sealer. With Gretsch there always is some exceptions - there are some 6ply shells around from the mid 50's I hear.

I don't see the Cadillac Green option in the 61 catalog.

My shells are date stamped 50, 51 and 53 - the rack tom hasn't got a date stamp and there is no silver sealer so I put it between 54 and 57...just an educated guess

I put the snare together tonight but I haven't put the badge on it yet - it's just hanging there for the photo. The drum sounds good - I put the Gretsch heads on it for now. I may tuck calfhide later. With the calfhide on my Gretsch snares I don't like the snare slunk calfhide....I prefer the Hazy 300 or the Gretsch head and calfhide on the batter.

The paint isn't an exact match - it was difficult enough for the paint supplier to do what he did with no paint code - only the original drum to look at. I'm happy with it. I even like the look of the snare and floor tom without the gold hardware.

Here they are with the hardware before gold plating

Congratulations on yet another great restoration job, Gary. From the pictures, the paint job looks like a pretty damn good match to me. Looking forward to pictures of the drums with the gold-plated hardware someday...

Yes - the match is good - not perfect, but good enough for me. It would be next to impossible to get an exact match to the original tom even if I did have the 'paint code' - the tom is over 50yrs old. You'd have to start with the same paint code and then try to age it........wouldn't happen.

This is good enough for me.

I put the EMAD batter and Ebony reso from my Purewood 22" bd on this BD and really was impressed with the tone and thunder. My Purewood is 18" deep - this one is 14....quite a difference in volume....but this drum has nice deep punch with these heads.

For those that might be interested I did a quick tally of what I have into these drums so far. This includes shells, shipping, hardware including badges, t-rods hoops everything, heads (I included the calfhide I have on the rack tom and the calfhide I have for the floor tom now), paint and the painting cost.

$2730

Gold Plating would be another $1500-$2000 and and another $500 for some SKB cases = $5200

Each drum

SNARE: $850

RACK TOM: $660

FLOOR TOM: $650

BASS DRUM:$570

It sounds expensive but not really. You couldn't buy this kit for that much if you found one out there. You'd be paying thousands more fro the snare drum alone. I know, I tried to buy one a few months ago (temporary insanity).

My offer was $2.5K short......ouch!

The other part of the satisfaction is having these orphaned drums getting together as a nice usable kit. That's worth it in itself.

Gary - how much you are into them isn't even an issue. They're yours and they are going to be yours, it's not about how much profit can be realized on a re-sale. It would only matter to someone like me who sells drums for income. As a keeper-kit, it's a gem and a rare one at that. Don't kid yourself, I think you'd be surprised how fast your money would come back to you if you did decide to sell them. I don't think you'd lose a dime.

Awesome recreation of an iconic drum kit. Well done, and money well-spent!

:2Cents:

John