Joe Mama,
Welcome to the forum! Love your name...that is funny moniker Mr. Besser.
Club dates are indeed pretty cool kits as they are the same shells as the top of the line Ludwig kits of the era. They saved money by using less hardware. Some guys fancy the idea of less hardware impeding shell vibrations, therefore, they may sound better than the top of the line kits. That is all a bit of speculation and personal opinion of course.
Citristrip is generally pretty popular around here. I am curious to know more about what is going on with the interiors. Seems like someone may have been a Neal Peart fan back in the early 80's and perhaps tried their hand at a home made "vibra-fibe" job. There is also the possibility that there was some structural damage to the interior plies and someone tried to patch that up a bit. Regardless, that sounds like it is not a lot of fun.
Is the exterior painted or what? As to the flat spots, it may be that the hardware was re-installed and tightened to within an inch of it's life, however, Airborne is correct in that a lot of Ludwig shells from the 60's suffer from humps and flat spots. Often this will show up at the scarf joint only, but I have seen drums with flay spots all the way around.
You are definitely making the right move to paint the interiors white. I would think trying to come up with a great looking clear finish would be far more work than it is worth. As to the possibility of a black laquer finish, I believe we have seen some examples of Club Dates with those kinds of finishes. Really pay attention to how snug your heads fit PRIOR to jumping into a re-wrap. There are some tricks to getting the wrap to behave with tight fitting heads, but you want to know what you are dealing with before you spend the money and the time on a re-wrap.
Bearing edges can be repaired pretty easily and cheaply by quite a few places around the country. If you are handy with a router you could probably of it yourself, but I would suggest practicing a bit first to make sure you know what is going on, otherwise you will eventually end up with a 3" deep mounted tom.
You can certainly purchase rims from any of the supply houses as well as just about any music store if you are OK with a Gibralter or similar rim. These are just fine, work well and are fairly cheap, they are just not OEM. Since this will be a player's kit, it probably does not matter. The same is true for bass drum hoops. Gibralter makes some really pretty pre-finished maple hoops or black hoops. All of the drum supply houses carry unfinished Keller hoops with or without inlay grooves. Of course, you can always find used ones on eBay or check here.
You can remove the Mapex legs, fill the holes with dowel rods prior to painting the interior and wrapping the exterior. Then pick up some period correct Ludwig leg mounts (about $17.00 each or so) and suitable legs.
It looks like you have a lot of work ahead of you, but there are plenty of folks here WAAAY more experienced than myself that are always willing to help. You will end up with a really nice kit when you are done.
Good luck and enjoy!
