Finally a "show-me-your" thread that I can afford to participate in! DRUMR69 (also my birth year), you might like this "Once you go Black" kit: WFL floor w/Gretsch leg mounts, painted black over WMP, Stewart kick w/added maple ply, turned into faux-WFL with 20 large classic nickel lugs, temporary 1977 12" big R tom (will be replaced soon by a 13" 3-ply WFL w/nickel HW, badly painted black inside & out) and a Ludwig Standard S102 that was born on Apr 13, '71, the day after my 2nd B-Day. One of these days there will be a thread about an orphan WFL kit in WMP or Duco (and my Londoner 5 will be whole again), but for now she remains Frankenstein. I always preferred the black jellybeans anyway!

PS; the picture is an early incarnation. There are nice heads on there now at least.

Cool stuff in this thread!

My Frankenkit is my daily driver. It's a goofy mix of old and new gear...The 18in bass, 10in tom, and 13in floor tom are modern stuff, but they are hand made locally using old-school techniques (all three are steam bent mono-ply shells from the same slab of Sycamore wood) so they have some vintage mojo, and sound positively huge for their size. The older parts are the crack'n little 12in Arbiter snare, the 50's Gretch tymp, and an older (not sure what year) 13in Sonor timptom/gong drum thing that I mounted like a rack tom on a heavy duty base...it weighs a ton, but it's super sturdy, just hit it and spin it like a steering wheel for all sorts of fun.

funkypoodle, I have a couple of original black sets and are amazed at how many where painted black. Cool kits and everyone is one of a kind.

Whoa Andy how are you? What's up with that Stewart kick?

I used a jellybean Frankenkit in the late 90’s for numerous gigs. It had a 14x22 aqua blue sparkle WFL bass, the &x12 was a red sparkle Clev Rogers, the 14x14 FT was a gold Clev Rogers, and the snare was a green sparkle Nashville Slingy Radio King. The “brand name” on the kit was “Peterbilt”.

All are long gone but wish I still had that Radio King! Sorry about the picture, it is the only one I have of that kit.

Actually in the garage! In California we don't have basements.

The house I grew up in had asbestos shingles with plastic siding over it.

That garage would be 100 degrees in summer and a wet 48 in the winter.

Glad I only had luan shells.

I never understood the "slab-on-grade" idea.

Why not dig a basement if you are building a home? Keep the utilities (and drums) down below, out of sight.

I hope that your drums float.DOH

Hey Michel! I bought the kick together with the WFL FT in a pawn shop. It took me a few weeks to figure out WTH I had actually bought. After a chance meeting with the guy who modified these I finally got the back story. The guy filled holes, laid maple over the Stewart kick and added 20 nickel Classic lugs to match 2 orphan WFL toms. These were the house kit in a local bar in Lac Beauport in the late 80's. I've got a lead on a 13" tom with nickel Classic lugs and I'm hoping to find a WFL or KS badged kick and swap out chrome lugs with the nickel ones (if needed). Then I'll decide whether to wrap/paint Duco, though so far miss-matched black really doesn't bug me & the 12" Rogers (5-ply) on there actually sounds good with the 3-ply WFL FT though it will be nice to put the 12" back on my Londoner 5.

Well, they ARE wood...

We had an issue with a water meter replacement gone horribly wrong...

But I just brought my drums upstairs as the water level rose.

Stage Band2