I have a 3-ply Ludwig kit that someone painted blue. underneath the blue is what looks to be a brown paint or wood-grain look. I'm not sure if an original wrap was removed and then the shells were painted or if the original brown finish was painted over. Either way, I was curious if there was a way of stripping the blue without damaging the brown underneath, or if I'm just better off re-wrapping the kit and giving up on trying to salvage anything original at this point.

Also, are these shells still considered "valuable" regardless of the exterior issues due to the type of shells they are?

I have a 14x22" bass, and 12-13-14-15-16" toms, all painted blue, but none are nearly as dinged up as the top of the bass drum pictured here.

Any input is welcome and appreciated! Just learning and trying new stuff! Thank you!

Joe,

It looks like a the bass drum originally had a mahogany finish. Unfortunately it has been damaged and will never look very good again no matter what you do. Plus it would more than likely be a ton of work stripping all of the paint off that many drums. If it were mine I would try some stripper on that bass drum as an experiment to see how easy or hard it is to remove the paint. If it comes off real easy and you can get the blue paint out of the grain then I would continue on the bass drum just to see how bad the damage to the original exterior ply is. If its too much work then pick a nice wrap and go with it.
As far as the three ply shells go, they are not necessarily valuable but they are desirable, seems they are preferred much more than the 6,5 ply without rings in general. Good luck, I hope you share your results with us. There are a lot of nice people here willing to give advice.

Wow, some major gashes in the drum.
I fully agree with Jeff C. And trust us he knows the refurbishing process . . . just read his posts on his donation kits.
Good luck and share what you have done.
Michael

Yep, if anyone knows wood and restoring drums, it's Jeff. I'd do what he suggests.
An easy re-wrap would be Jammin' Sam's, should you choose to go that route.
Also, there is some hardware that is not Ludwig, and it looks like the bass drum
spurs were added, giving the shell extra holes and diminishing it's value even further.
Whatever the case, these drums can still be brought back to life with a little hard work
and patience. Keep us posted !

cheers,
Rob

If those were mine, I would use some wood filler to fill in the gashes and then recover them in the wrap of your choice. If you are wanting to go the economical route (around $50) for the wrap, you could do what I did and use vinyl fabric. Here is a how to video I did: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1HBiJJjZ6c"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1HBiJJjZ6c[/ame]