I've been pondering this of late and decided to start a new thread. There may very well be similar past threads - if so forgive my redundancy. My question involves whether or not to apply oil to the raw wood inside of vintage drum shells. This assumes that they are not painted as in Ludwig or Gretsch shells which I would leave well enough alone.
In my opinion these old shells cry out to be oiled. They are bone dry and just soak up the oil which feeds the wood and just makes them look all the more beautiful. I'm aware of the sonic issues and know that technically adding the oil to the wood would dampen the vibrations a bit and change the sonic characteristics. There is technical merit to this and as an aerospace engineer I actually spent a little time working with dynamic structural engineers whose entire job was evaluating vibration characteristics of critical aircraft components. However my old ears can't tell the difference in my drums oil or no oil - of coarse after 40 years of playing rock and roll my ears ain't what they used to be - lol !
As an example I've attached a couple of pics of a Slingerland RK kit that I pieced together about a year ago. I was looking for a beat up gig kit that sounded good but without the fuss of cases to minimize setup tear down efforts I got the BD and FT from CL and the ST from ebay. They were all in pretty rough shape with resonate heads hoops and lugs missing- peeling WMP wrap etc etc. I pieced them back together as best I could and in the process applied several coats of lemon oil to the inside shells. They drank the oil up as fast as I could apply it and in the process took on a beautiful dark amber color. I could almost hear the shells say " Thank You !! "
I'd love to know what you guys think. Did I screw these shells up by applying the oil ? Did I improve them with the oil ? Or maybe it doesn't matter one way or the other. Your astute comments are very much appreciated.
Doug
