Hello folks,

First off, I'm completely new to this sort of thing. I've never restored or attempted to restore anything before, and thought I'd give it a go for kicks.

Here's the sitch: I recently acquired 3 ludwig B/O 6-ply shells - 16x24 kick, 16x18 FT and a 10x14 rack.

I'll take this one drum at a time (and try to attach images in that order):

16x24 Kick: This is wrapped in white cortex, and the wrap is pretty badly scuffed up. No problem, since I plan to replace it. The shell looks like its in decent shape, including the bearing edges. However, as seen in one of the photos, it looks as if there were holes drilled for an extra set of spurs (across from the existing spurs closer to the batter head). I'm not sure if this was done by the manufacturer (in which case, what went there?), or if someone decided to drill some extra holes. If the latter, how easy is it to plug this? In addition, how easy/hard is it to plug the tom holder hole if I decide to have a "virgin" kick?

Also, the hoops seem to be in OK condition, just kinda scuffed up. How exactly do I go about refurbishing the hoops? Stripping the paint, sanding, and then repainting?

So, next up is the 16x18 floor tom:This (I believe) originally had a lacquer finish of some type, but I'm not sure. Someone decided to paint or spray-paint this black. What kind of stripper do I use to remove this paint? I'm assuming this is a strip/sand and then rewrap type of deal?

Anyway, on to the bigger issue with this shell: As you can see in the picture, the inside has some ply separation/cracking. I've been trying to do some research, but not with a lot of luck. It looks like I could probably glue this up and clamp it, and have it be relatively ok (wood glue for this?). The other crack is fairly small and unfortunately right in the middle of the plys on the bearing edge, not sure what I can do with that. Any thoughts/suggestions/input?

Lastly is the 10x14 rack tom in silver sparkle. While the wrap looks OK in the pictures, the seam of the wrap is starting to come up near where it's been "buttoned up", so I'd like to just replace it with a better job. 2 questions about this drum: 1st, as you can see in the picture, the bearing edge has a nice chip in it. Any way to fix this? and 2nd, there are a few small holes drilled on the drum and I'm not exactly sure what was there or why they were put there. Anyone know?

Also, if anyone could give me some advice one what type of stripper, glue, and sandpaper to use, i'd be eternally grateful. I know this has been a long post with a lot of questions, so I appreciate it if you actually took the time to read it. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated (I have uploaded the kick and floor tom pics in this post, and will follow up with the rack tom pics).