Congrats on that one Andrew. That's a fine drum. I've done a few of those too and have had the same thoughts. I use Cape Cod polishing cloths on the nickel. But I don't go real aggressive with them as they seem to have bit of abrasion with them. The old nickel plating on these drums is often thin and you can get to the brass underneath if you're not careful. Looks like it will clean up nicely.

Mike

With a metal shelled drum like that one, I'd try to make it as shiny and clean as I could. As Mike said, for nickel, Cape Cod cloths do the trick.

John

Thanks Mike and John. I'll get some cape cod cloths and get stuck in.

Lovely looking drum Andrew and one that I know is going to sound incredible. I used Autosol on my L&L nickel on brass and it came up beautifully but I was in the fortunate position that it already was in pretty good nick to begin with - yours may require a little more elbow grease! look forward to seeing the finished article.

thanks Gerard, that's good to know, too. Your L&L came up really well. I've used Autosol on nickel hardware but haven't cleaned up a shell yet. It needs a good clean but it has survived pretty well.

I actually got it here on TM. I spotted it amongst some old Trixon drums in Invercargill and Mark (supraphonic here) ID'd it as a dance model from this one photo. I bought it along with some other bits but let him keep the Trixons as the shipping was too high for an incomplete kit. As soon as I completed the deal it suddenly dawned on me that maybe it wasn't a Ludwig (seller couldn't provide any more photos) but more likely an old Premier or something else British (which would be fine but I had to pay him a bit to separate it from the auction, more than what an old Prem would be worth). I sweated on it all week but it turned out fine.

Nice drum. Too bad you could not get him to throw in the Manikin head.

"Thats just weird"

sa

What an incredible find Andrew - especially from Invercargill! A lot better than the usual overpriced and apparently 'rare' dross normally found on TM.

Yes, the nice stuff is often found in the most unlikely places. I should point out that while it was a good price for one of these, especially for NZ, it wasn't a steal.

I would like to respectfully offer a different opinion. I don't go for trying to polish these great drums up to try to look like new. They are after all, a vintage piece and I personally like to see some patina and signs of aging as opposed to seeing how shiny I can make the nickel. I know it is very tempting as nickel is so soft and it is easy to make them nice and shiny.

No matter what you use to polish nickel, you are removing some of the nickel land the nickel plating on those shells is very thin. Yes, even the cape cod cloth. (I have actually used a cape cod cloth to remove swirls and light scratches from stainless steel, which is much harder than fragile nickel.)

If the drum is pretty nice to start with, a good gentle cleaning should suffice. Remember, once you polish, you can't put the original finish back.

I always find it interesting that with any other vintage or antique item, once you polish off the patina you destroy the value.

Just my 2 cents worth and you are free to disagree. I have seen too many of these great drums over polished and trying to make a 80-90 year old drum look new.