You sure those are mij??? They look like Slingerlands to me. It would be interesting to see what is under that paint on the inside of the shell.

I'm 90% sure. Definitely mahogany for the inner and outer plies. Maple rerings.

The shells all have Star Badges. The original bass drum tom mount bracket was removed and a Slingerland was put in it's place. Some pieces of hardware have "TAMA" stamped on it.

#1 reason I think they are Star drums - The lug spacing is not 1.5" , it is 1 9/16". The lugs are almost identical to Sland lugs, but they sit flush with the shell and they have a larger footprint as well.

I would really hope someone wouldn't deface a nice set of Slingerland drums that way!

Would the star drums have maple rings? Those lugs and T's and claws look like the ones from my 50's Slingerland bass.

Yes, they do have maple rings, and yes, the hardware is almost identical to Slingerlands. The bass lugs are distintive, however, as Pearl made some shorter fatter ones early on that closely resembled Slings.

These are stencils, remember, designed to look like their American counterparts.

[IMG]http://www.imagehosting.me/pictures/1d82772f0de2ae735aa9720cba80bfe9.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.imagehosting.me/pictures/9085986fee9270ae410b9b2ac94d1080.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.imagehosting.me/pictures/d99e1888f64e850423e7c3e70c4487d0.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.imagehosting.me/pictures/cde989a6ed589510499f45838c38e975.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the bass drum after surface leveling, black base, 4 coats green flake, 5-6? coats of clear. all lacquered. Hoops were sanded raw, stained, strip painted inca gold, and lacquered clear gloss. I buffed it all by hand.

The luddy snare is one I picked up at GC a couple weeks ago. Seems to be late 70's. Blue and olive badge with rounded corners. It had a chrome wrap on it and a seized internal muffler. Oh...........AND NO SNARE BEDS!!! I cut them myself.

This is such a fun learning experience though. The stuff I've learned is invaluable. Thanks for all the help so far guys!

(Deleted.)

there we go, pics up!

Wow, nice job. You really went all out on the customization. How does the bass drum sound? How are the other drums in this set coming? (And thanks for the update!)

Thanks! I really wanted them to be special. Just taking a lot more time than I thought it would. I've got the floor tom's black base on and a 12" polaris tom (I got it off of ebay, very similar shell to Star) base coated too.

I should be done with those in about a week. I have a 14x10" Sland tom I'm going to finish too. So it will be 22"b, 16"ft, 14"t, 12"t, 14x5" Snr.

I'm really unsure about finishing the 13" Star tom.

As for sound.....I've only just learned how to tune the snare! lol It's going to take a couple tries to get the bass drum right, if it's anything like the snare, this may be a two day process. I'm going to start experimenting tonight after work. I will get some clips up for yall once I'm done.

Man oh man, fun on a bun. Those are so cool! Great job. I love when someone takes old drums for next to nothing and breathes life into them. You made these very worthy instruments. Outstanding.