Hi There,
Here a post on a restoration project of a Ludwig 1966 Combo.
I'm Belgian and quite new on the forum.
I've been a Ludwig drummer for the past 25 years and always dreamed to get my hands on a vintage sixties kit.
Preferably the kit had to be 1966 (year of my birth) and as it's intended to be a home-playing kit, it needed to be small-sized. (read: "not to loud").
As Jazettes, Downbeats, Club dates or any other vintage Ludwig are very rare and bloody expensive in Europe, I started looking at buying one from the US. I did some work on drums and re-wraps in the past so I don't mind to get my hands dirty.
A few weeks ago I finally bought on Ebay USA a matching bass drum 20" and a 12" tom for a very reasonable price. Needs to be said that the Dollar/Euro conversion makes almost every sale from US sweet.
As you can see in the pictures, it does require a lot of work.
- Missing BD-hoop.
- Missing hardware. (t-rods, claws, L-arm,...)
- Some hardware not original.
- BD inside been painted black
- Paint in bad shape
- etc..
Anyway, last week I started to polish the hardware and to my surprise the BD-lugs are chrome and the 12" tom are nickel. (see previous post)
http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=19658
Another surprise during the sanding was to find out that underneath the black paint a Duco Blue-silver finish appeared. Needless to say that the Duco-paint is beyond restore. I have quite some Green-Sparkle Delmar wrap left from a previous project so that's the finish I've chosen for this one.
The good news is that the bearing edges are perfect and that the overall condition of the woodwork and metal is fantastic !
For snare, I'm thinking about a matching pioneer or otherwise a 1960's Acrolite. A matching 14" floortom is definitely planned but waiting on good deal (re-wrap). Some hardware I have already bought, some of it still on it's way or looking for it on Ebay.
Most missing mall-parts were ordered from Len Howe at Classic Drums. http://www.classicdrums.com/
I'll keep you guys informed on the progress and I hopefully get some nice feedbacks.