I'd strip with zip-strip, dowel extra holes, sand down both in and out 80 thru 220, and seal the inside with Johnson's Feed and Wax.

It sounds like you had a hard time fitting heads with that wrap on(?) which means it was originally a painted drum. I would personally have it professionally painted, as 9x out of 10 an amateur clear coat on the outside just doesn't do it for me.

Interests to see how this turns out!! Nice drum for sure.

Fishaa and JBones1,

Thank you both for the good input.

I'll take a look at more examples and see what I like.

Sounds like you are both leaning to natural/clear coat and paint coatings.

I just saw a gold/black Duco that looked awesome. So the coating are still in the running!

The early catalogs had the wood veneer coverings which didn't sell all that well. Did the pearl wraps become options later or did you have to special order that?

Looks like I'll be looking at Home Depot for some parts to build a clamping jig tonight.

Thank you.

R-

Like someone already stated, you have a single ply shell. To veneer it will make it a two ply and may not accommodate the hoops and splay of the rod to lugs. A very thin layer may work.

I would strip it down to bare wood and see what I got first. Inside the drum a bees wax will go on wet but dry without sheen (8 coats 12hr dry). When clear coating wood, the rule of thumb is, light wood will get darker and dark wood will get lighter Maple is a nice finish so see what you got first.

Remember, your drum was sanded by hand while spinning at the factory. The only way to get that look is wax on wax off or spin it.

I would not attempt to "re spin" this out of round drum in a lathe...

A one to five percent margin in the chucking process will be enough to destroy the drum... IMO..

Hand sanding only...

Cheers

OddBall and LongJohn,

Thank you again for the helpful advice.

After I removed the wrap, I Was able to get the hoops on -- about an inch down from the bearing edge. I got almost a quarter turn before it got a little snug -- so I determined that the hoops are not quite in-round as well.

I will remove the paint that will come off easily, just to keep the project easy to work on.

I'm curious about the wrap. It has a "cellulose" quality, and a smokey, horizontal direction.

Best-

The wrap actually looks to me more like contact paper, or maybe that Sparkle Brite type stuff.

your going to have a near impossible time getting a wrap on these Rk shells they are the painted shells which are a little over sized Slingerland did this to stained and painted shells, the wrapped shells are slightly undersized to accommodate the wrap.

I still say do all sanding by hand, Lonjohn`s right, the machine can ruin it if you`re not careful even on slower speeds.

One of the best ways to determine out of round is with a square box the same width as the OD of the drum. It easier to make a true box than circle. The tape on the bench can show your hoops but a box will show 12,3,6, and 9 o`clock vertically up the run of the height.

How far along are you?

The only way to validate wrapping it is if you're going to tuck some calf heads to custom fit the drum after it's been wrapped.... which is pretty cool too.

Aaron