Well last week was a wash having time to work on the kit. My wife was away for the week for work. So no spare time really to get anything done. This week is off to a better start.

I got the missing bass drum hoop inlay replaced today. John the Purdie man sent me some spare WMP wrap from his Gretsch tom project. Nice guy that John is! Clapping Happy2 He cut me a nice 1/2 strip for the inlay and sent a few larger pieces too. So I trimmed and fitted it to size. That's drying as we speak and one more thing checked off the list.

Work continues on the 13" shell. Need to sand down the plugs inside the shell, stain them and clean and detail. I'm thinking tung oil on all the interiors. We'll see. That's all for now.

Had some time for the 13" today. Had to knock down the plugs inside the shell, sand and stain. Stain was a little wet still when the pic was taken but nice match in the dry spots. Here's some pics.

Next up was painting the shell. My son (pic 1) did the spray work in his booth. Twas a wee bit hot here today. His happy face in the pic and I like his shirt saying. We had to fix it LOL. Yes we did! First we did a translucent white. Opaque white cut with some clear. This left the shell a bit splotchy looking but meh. We figured when we tint the shell it'll fill in and correct. Plus I wanted some grain to show through. The train of thought was to mimic the WMP look with a yellow tint to give it the aged look. Well we shot a few coats of reduced amber over the white. This left the shell a weird yellow-greenish tint. Nothing like I was after. Darn. Waited for it to dry and I sanded the shell down again. Take 2 was a more solid white with several coats. Got a nice even finish but lost some of the grain show through. Oh well. We stopped here today. Monday I'll need to adjust the tint to see if I can get a closer color to the aged WMP. Then many coats of clear after that. I was also helping him finish up his home made amp head and did new locking strap locks on my other son's P bass. So there was some other things going on throught the day. Fun day and got a good jump on the tom. More to come on this adventure next week. Thanks for playin along. ;)

Looking good there, Glenn. Can't wait to see these up and running. Nice work, man. I love seeing old drums brought back to life.

John

Thanks John. This tom was pretty rough. But it's a cool old drum and very worthy of the time and effort I think. I just hope I can get the tint color right. If not it'll be a little whiter than the rest of the kit. I don't know where the greenish yellow hue came from in the amber dye? Very strange. Bit of a setback there but I'll try to sort it out. Worst case I might scuff off some of the white and try to get the white more translucent again.

Still need to clear and tint the 13" tom. My son had a busy week with guitars. Since this is his day job I told him we'll wait till the weekend or when he has time. No biggie. In the meantime I used some of the Howard "Feed-N-Wax" on the inside of the 16" shell. It was pretty dry so 2 applications were done. Finished the outside with one more coat of Restoration Polish. Just need to put the hardware back on this one and it's done. Still need 28 hoop clips, T rods and heads for all. I was going to use calfskin heads but it's just not in the budget at the moment. I'll get some Evans heads from my son for dealer cost again. The bass has calfskin heads but might replace the 22" batter side with a new Evans head too. I also spent some time polishing the NOB single flange hoops I got recently. I thought it was interesting the difference between the engraved and stamped "Slingerland Radio King" logos. The engraved hoops have a delicate touch. Where the stamped hoops are clearly a little more deep and pronounced. Also the witness mark on the inside of the stamped logo rim made it easy to spot the difference. Here's a few pics.

First the stamped outside of the hoop.

Next the "witness mark" inside the stamped hoop.

Last the softer engraved hoop.

All are very classy and original parts really help the quality of the resto IMO.

Happy 4th of July everyone~! Have a safe and fun holiday.

Almost forgot.........just wanted to thank James for the tip on the Howards Feed-N-Wax. Great product and worked very well. Nice citrus smell too. ;)

Clear went on today without much fanfare. We got 3 coats on there. Monday I'll wetsand the shell and do 3-4 more clearcoats. The clear is starting to yellow the shell slightly. So might not need much tint. We'll see how it goes. There's 1 slight run you can see in pic 2 left side, 2nd lug hole from the bottom in the reflection. That'll get sanded out. Meh.

Pic 1 the first coat.

Pic 2 the second coat (camera got a weird shade in this pic).

Pic 3 the third coat and last for today.

Not much new to report. The clear coats are still going on today and again tomorrow. I should have it cut and buffed by end of week. Once it's done and the hardware on it I'll post a few pics.

Well I think there's a change of plans on this one. Our Grandson's 2nd Birthday party was today so between the party, rain and massive thunderstorms I spent a bit of time staring at the 13" shell today at my sons house. I'm just not 100% happy with the paint route and the results we're getting. Funny as someone brought up a older thread of mine on aged WMP. I was thinking the same thing today. Stopping the paint work and wrapping it with something from DrumMaker's color match pearls. I've been looking at the massive selection of color swatches they have recently. And I'm going to ask for some samples. I'm pretty sure I can find something that'll be a suitable match. After everything I've been through the last thing I want is to not be pleased with my efforts. And I'm just not at this point. So there you have it. There's always some bumps along the restoration road.