Now that the Bevereley Blue Badge project is finished (see gallery) I started a new project I had my mind on for quite a while. I'm calling it Spartacus.
It is going to be a very special one-of-a-kind drumset made out of antique metal marching drums. All orphans.
Untill now I've got material for a 14 inch snare drum (NOB), a 14 inch floor tom (very old patinated NOB with blue wood hoops), a 16 inch floortom (copper, home made, see furtheron), a 22 x 10 inch bass drum (100 years old patinated yellow copper). Still looking for material for a 12 inch tom.
I'm planning on making every drum look different, on purpose. I want the set to be a family of different characters with some similarities (the similarities being: old, a metal drum, a marcher, single tension rods [hence the name spartacus], not so deep).
I'm using the measure "Inch" here... Off course that's impossible with antique european drums. I found a solution for that, one that also helps me out on the risk of ending up with a kit that sounds tinny. I'm making thick beech re-ring in modern sizes (12, 14, 16, 22) and I will glue the metal shells around them (after cutting them open of course). More or less like the Q-drums copper drumsets.
I'm a bit ashamed to say: For making the re-rings I'm cutting up a sonor action!!!! This set I bought for allmost nothing (it had a ruined wrap) and was planning on staining and laquering the beech shells some day. However, I have to be thrifty with my time and like to spend it on a weird project like this much better than on a dull project like the sonor action. And making re-rings myself would be a whole lot of time. So, I put one and two together.... Feels odd to cut up a perfectly good drum shell. Oh well, I'll get over it.
In this post some rough pictures of the starting material.
In the next post some pics and words on the floortom. I'll do drum after drum (not all at the same time) and will keep you posted.