Usually "surprises" when doing repair/cleaning/maintenance on drums is usually more of an "Oh Crap" feeling. This one was actually a "Wow, that was cool" feeling:
I acquired some (non vintage) drums that were in great shape, except the wrap was held on by double sided tape at only two points- where the wrap "starts" on the bare wood, and where it overlaps itself at "the end". As a result, the seam where it overlaps itself was very loose and was almost coming all the way off, on all the drums. The wrap is in very good shape and it is pretty unique (a "generic" take on 60's Black Oyster Pearl), so I wanted to save it and not scrap it.
In order to fix the seam, I removed the lug on each side of the drum where the seam was (even the lug being on the seam didn't really help), and left all other lugs/brackets etc. in place. On each drum, the wrap was good where it "Started" on the bare wood, so I used glue (3M Fast Bond) where the seam was, plus a little "before" the seam, on the bare wood and the underside of the wrap, decently close down as I could get before I ran into the closest adjacent lug that was still attached (and thus holding the wrap in place). My seam repair worked great, but after it was dry I noticed when cleaning up just a tiny bit of excess glue, that there was a "poofy" or "airy" spot near each adjacent lug from where I did the repair, like a little air pocket, that was "squishy". I figured it wouldn't have any effect on the head fitting tight, and as long as I wasn't getting a rattle or buzzing from it when playing, I wasn't going to worry too much about it (not exactly the worlds greatest drums).
However, much to my pleasant surprise, when I took off the rest of the lugs, brackets etc. to clean them and polish the shell with Novus #1, I noticed (while polishing by hand) that after I removed all the lugs, the "poofy" pockets of air had disappeared, and the wrap was very tight on the shell all over. I reassembled the drum and the wrap is still nice and tight everywhere!
I just wanted to share this story, because it's really nice to have an "oops" or unintended consequence actually turn out to be just fine and better than you would have hoped!
V
P.S.-How many of you thought I found money under a lug or an autographed Mickey Mantle baseball card inside the rack tom?
