Hey I know this has been asked before but I have some specific questions and I want to get this right.

So I have a set of shells for a 50's Premier. They took me a while to collect; they're basically model 54's, but im making them up into a 'continental' from the 1953 catalogue, plus a later 14" floor tom. I have all the correct bits ready to go, and all of them are in very good condition with little pitting to the chrome after polishing (if you do a lot of chrome cleaning by the way, a gunsmith's soft steel brush on a grinder is an excellent tool for this, it doesn't even scratch duroplastic wrap, as I learned to my surprise, and the chrome comes up as new very quickly, I can provide more info if anyone is interested).  I'm in the process of 'restoring' the shells; some have holes which need to be filled, just general tidying up to do on others.

I decided not to re-use the original tom mounts. I've had three bass drums from this period, and two of them had such bad damage and 'bowing' to the plywood around the tom mouning hole, they're almost unrecoverable. I won't throw them away but they're not worth my time trying to fix. I never really liked those 'spigot' mounts, and even though I have a pretty much pristine set to use from one of the kits, using them on a drum kit I intend to play a lot seems like a recipe for stripped threads. Instead, I happily discovered that a 12 or 13" pearl ISS mount fits the rims perfectly, so i will be modifying one of those with a L-arm bracket and rack mounting them.

I've figured everything else out, but I'm dithering on the wrap choice. Unfortunately none of the shells had their original wraps in anywhere near good enough condition to restore. I got most of them from 2 seperate kits which had been re-wrapped or had the wrap completely peeling. I have a set of bongos to go on it in white duro, which is likely going to be the easiest to match from that period anyway.

I had a spare Royal Ace shell with a nackered paralell mechanism, and a bunch of badly drilled extra holes, so I've done a very quick and dirty restoration job on it, and wrapped it in wood veneer. My intial plan was to use birchwood veneer, then finish them with button polish up to a fine gloss. Unfortunately after finishing this snare off as a tester it just doesn't look right, and I dont think I want to do it that way.

If you've read this far, and have any suggestions, I would really appreciate some advice. I do NOT want to put a new white drum wrap on them, and I don't like how other 'modern vintage' wraps look (at least the ones ive seen, nor the price tag!). I haven't found  one which would be appropriate for this age of drum, and even if I did, I'm not sure I could justify the expense. I could get them professionally wrapped, but so far I've spent about £200 to get to this point and unless it was perfect, again, I don't think it's worth it. 

The only reliable way to do it that I can think is wrap them in the veneer, then get a professional spray company to colour match the white duro, and finish them in high gloss. I have enough left that hasn't yellowed that I think they could match it closely. 

The only other way I can think of is to try and match it with something like formica, which my dad (a retired carpenter) suggested. I've sent off for some samples and it would work out significantly cheaper. I'm just not sure I'm happy doing it this way either, even if the colour was right. 

If anyone can suggest any other ways, I'd appreciate it. I know new stuff comes up all the time and it's changed a lot since I started collecting up the bits over a decade ago. Time isn't an issue, so I don't mind spending time to get it right, i'd rather do that then spend money and it not be.

Thanks again!