his reply:
Oh fantastic! thats one of my questions answered!!! i've been trying to find out what is on those shells for ages now!
Do you think its a nitrocelluose lacquer? I know that thats what guitar companies were using on their guitars back in the day. And also, what degree of sheen do you think it would have? a guitarist friend told me he thinks it was probably a satin sheen, rather than a gloss.
And just for interest sake, it would also have been a lacquer on the "Thermogloss" kits, right? Except do you think that probably would have been a gloss? (given the name "thermogloss" and its degree of sheen?)
oh! and i've already read that entire thread of converting the standards to superclassics, one of the big reasons why i say you are THE man!
as cool as the granitone interior is, i'm really keen on the clear maple interior.
With regard to removing paint, i've visited several hardware stores and joined a woodwork forum, and asked many people about the best way to remove the paint, so i can pass on whatever ideas i've heard if you'd like:
1. The first one is sanding. However this has several issues. Firstly, it is very very time consuming. Also, its possible that along with removing the layers of paint, we'd also remove that lacquer finish, which we'd both rather keep on in our cases. Not only that, but it may remove parts of the interior maple ply and leave the drum uneven.
*next, the chemical methods*
2. Probably the most gentle chemical method is using methylated spirits on a rag. This has a couple of advantages in that i've heard methylated spirits can be used quite safely on wood (especially a hard wood like maple) as it dries very quickly and hence is not absorbed into the wood itself. However methylated spirits will only dissolve and remove water-based paints, it will not work on oil based paints (it will only loosen them). The disadvantage of this is the methylated spirits will probably dissolve the lacquer as well, but it will probably do it slowly.
3. If the paint is oil based then you can use Acetone to remove it. However using acetone will certainly remove the lacquer finish.
4. probably the next step up is using that 3M safest strip. This is the stuff you used on stripping the black paint off your wrap, which was a nitrocellulose wrap was it not? I've read that 3M safest stripper can be used to remove lacquers, but you found that your wrap was mostly unaffected...didn't you? It would be very interesting to see whether the 3M safest stripper would affect the interior nictrocellulose lacquer!
5a). Finally if everything fails, paint stripper is an option, however i'm mostly worried about applying a paint stripper and it affecting the wood in some way. If we were to completely strip back to the bare wood, then i've heard that removing the residue of the paint stripper with methylated spirits will work well. (as it dries very quickly). A lot of woodwork forums suggest washing off paint stripper residue with warm, soapy water. but this definitely does NOT sound like the right way to do it for a drum.
5b) If we were to strip the drum completely we'd have to reapply a nitrocellulose lacquer. Mohawk is a great company which makes AWESOME wood products, i'd use this sanding sealer:
http://www.mohawk-finishing.com/cata...asp?ictnbr=442
and this nitrocellulose topcoat if it came down to reapplying a lacquer. (you can also get the lacquer in whatever sheen you like! dead flat, satin, semi-gloss, gloss etc.)
http://www.mohawk-finishing.com/cata...asp?ictNbr=430
What methods were you thinking?
Cheers!!
