Thanks for the compliments everyone! I really appreciate that.

By the way, if anyone else decides they want to do something like this, I don't think I would ever do it again. It took a LOT of time to get the bands on and more time trying to get them to lay as flat as possible. I think Creighton's idea would work well because you could just butt up the matchbook covers against each other. What was so hard about this was layering the bands in a way that covered the shell without covering too many features of the other bands.

Jeff recommended, and it worked very well, that I water down some wood glue and suck it into a syringe to get glue behind any bands that had air bubbles behind them. In most cases, I was able to get behind the bands without poking any holes, but the holes that I had to make are tiny and not noticeable. It took a good bit of time over several sittings, and it didn't make everything lay perfectly flat, but it worked very well. I found that this is also a nice little trick to get glue in tiny spaces, such as the tiny gaps where reinforcement rings pull away from a shell.

They sure did like it. They offered to display it. ;) I said I'd have to think about it. Laughing H They are going to post pictures on their Facebook page.

I will definitely let it cure a while before I bring it out anywhere to play. I'm just showing it off for now...hauling it around in a case.

Lynn

David Letterman would go crazy if he saw that.

Cigars and drums are his two favorite things.

Lynn - That drum came out better than I could have imagined. The problem with it coming out so good is; now you'll have to create the rest of the kit!

Spectacular job by all involved but mostly it was your determination that made it happen. Excellent, one-of-a-kind snare drum. Kudo's on a job well done.

BTW, I recognize the cigar label located top/right of the throw off, I smoke those; 'La Gloria Cubana'. Great cigars! Cuban tobacco grown in Santo Domingo.

John

Maybe I should shoot him an email and attach a pic. Jumping2

Thanks again to everyone who was involved, and for all of the kind words.

Lynn

Lynn,

Was wood glue the adhesive you used to apply all the labels? Brushed on each individual band?

I used DAP Weldwood Contact Cement...brushed on each individual band. I would brush it on a portion of the band (sometimes left half or bottom half or bottom left quarter, leaving some part of the band without glue) so that I could peel it back and slide another band under it to get the layered look I wanted. I went back and glued the bands that I could peel up with the Weldwood, but if I couldn't get enough of the band to peel up in order to get the brush behind it, I used the watered-down wood glue/syringe method.

Lynn

Wow, that's a lot of work! I'm still considering giving an old snare the same treatment but using the hundreds of postage stamps I've collected. What do you think of simply spraying the whole shell with contact adhesive, and then just sticking on the stamps one at a time? Any reason you think that wouldn't work? Seems less labor intensive.

Congrats again on an amazing project.

Mike C

Thank you! Yes, it was very labor intensive to layer the bands, and then go back and glue to the portion that didn't initially have glue. I did it that way so I could hide the spots on the bands that were blemished, and not cover any nice features of other bands at the same time.

I would think that if you sprayed the shell with a slow-drying adhesive, you could do that. The problem I had was the glue drying so quickly that I couldn't move a band into the position I wanted it in if I didn't get it on right away. So, my concern with spraying it would be that the glue would get tacky, and if you don't position one of your stamps exactly where you want it, you'd have to carefully pull it off to reposition it. Or, you could spray the shell, then brush a bit of glue on each stamp. You would have a better bond having glue on the shell and the stamps, and the wet glue on the stamp would let you slide it into position if you need to. You would probably just square them up with each other, right? Or, possibly the least time-consuming method (if you can't find a slow-drying adhesive), would be to just brush the glue on each stamp. I'm sure you will spray some clear lacquer over it to protect the stamps, which will hold them tight to the shell. Just make sure you don't have any air bubbles behind any stamps because that would result in a crack in your finish later with even a light bump.

Good luck with that! Please post pictures when you do it. I bet that would like very cool and I would sure like to see it.

Lynn

Lynn, great job on the drum, I'm glad to see that it came out so well, I was wondering what ever became of this project. Hope to see it in person one of these days. Great idea putting the labels on the inside of the shell, didn't think of that myself. I especially like the pictures in the local cigar shop humidor, I may have to borrow that idea from you if any of my locals have a humi big enough for an entire kit. You are now the only other person in the world that can appreciate the amount of time involved in putting a drum like this together. I did the one kit and can honestly say that I would not do it again unless their was a really good sum of money involved. Great job!!!

Thanks Matt! Thanks again for allowing me to borrow your idea!

That would be a cool picture if you could get your kit in a humidor.

I agree, I'd have to be paid well to do this again.

Take care!

Lynn