Thought about what to do with this for quite a while and decided to sand off the nickel on the exterior, patch the hole cut for the electric socket, buff it, then patina it and re-assemble.
It took about 45 min and half a dozen 400 grit sanding disks to remove the nickel.
I have a slingerland chrome on brass shell that has badly damaged edges which I got with purchase of a kit a year or two ago which i used as a donor for the needed brass. I cut a piece to fit the hole in the Ludwig shell and a piece as a backing plate. Ground off and sand papered all the brass surfaces that needed to adhere together, applied some flux, clamped them all in place and silver soldered the mess together. Worked like a charm! Then I filed off the chorme still on the repair piece, filed it flush, sanded and started buffing. Buffing the whole shell with my meager bench grinder is taking quite a while, so i paused to show the work so far:
Here's the hole in the shell:
[img]http://www.mountainserver.net/drums/lud20sresto/lud20sresto04.jpg[/img]
The repair pieces cut from the slingerland shell:
[img]http://www.mountainserver.net/drums/lud20sresto/lud20sresto05.jpg[/img]
Filler piece in place, and you can see the surfaces sanded so flux/solder will adhere:
[img]http://www.mountainserver.net/drums/lud20sresto/lud20sresto06.jpg[/img]
Still clamped and soldered in place
[img]http://www.mountainserver.net/drums/lud20sresto/lud20sresto07.jpg[/img]
Super closeup of the repair after filing flush and mostly buffed out:
[img]http://www.mountainserver.net/drums/lud20sresto/lud20sresto08.jpg[/img]
And finally the view from the inside:
[img]http://www.mountainserver.net/drums/lud20sresto/lud20sresto09.jpg[/img]