Howdy,
Been awhile since I was on the hunt for a second set of '65 Club Dates for my rockabilly gig with the Straight 8s. I made the mistake of falling in love with the bronze mist lacquer finish, but managed to find a 12/14/20 shell pack and then a matching pioneer snare on reverb. I say "mistake" only because this finish is somewhat hard to come by, and even harder to find shells that aren't scarred up or flaking like crazy.
The BD shell had some sort of hardened duct tape residue on it. There wasn't a lot of it, but what was there was like concrete. It took 16+ hours or rubbing small circles with Ronsonol lighter fluid. That stuff is amazing! Not so much because it works fast (it doesn't) but because it did absolutely no harm to the 50 year old lacquer finish. The rest of the drums needed very little... just general cleanup and oiling the lugs.
You can see the finished kit in action in the new Straight 8s video here:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4I-Kzc_NpA#]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4I-Kzc_NpA[/ame]
These drums just sound amazing and have a look that seems to compliment the 8's style of music. Funny how tastes change... when I was younger, I don't think I would have gone out of my way to play a set of "plain looking brown drums". LOL Nowadays I'd probably pick up another set just in case something happened to these. :-)
-murph