Hey all!

Thanks to all forum members who have posted on restoring, collecting and maintaining vintage made in Japan drums! I finished restoring a SUPERCHEAP blue sparkle kit and wanted to pass on what I learned for those who haven't done something like this yet.

First, my drums are 3 ply w/ re-rings and while the floor tom and kick sound amazing, the snare and hi-tom were a little warped due to the incredibly thin shells and left something to be desired...

First, for all the drums I took off all hardware, lugs etc and sanded the interiors. It is important to go with the grain (hoop to hoop on mij's) as the wood is quite thin on some drums and may splinter. After a good sanding, I went back over the insides with 0000 steel wool, although some extra fine sandpaper would have worked here too.

I then polished the wraps of the drums with products not unlike car polish. I cleaned all the rods, washers and lugs with the very fine steel wool. On a couple things, like screws, nuts and washers I used a product call 'wink rust remover' that worked wonders.

After reassembling, I was totally happy with the floor and kick drum, but the hi-tom and snare left a bit to be desired.

So, I used some deft spray lacquer (mentioned by another forum member) and did a couple coats on the inside of the snare drum. HOLY MOSES did that make it sound great! It also made the drum appear more attractive too.

I also re-worked the bearing edges a bit and cut a better snare bed, but the lacquer just made this thing sound great. I mainly use a 70's acrolite to play, but after lacquering this snare I've been switching back and forth.

On the hi-tom, I did the same thing, but with less coats. My plan was mainly to brighten the drum up a little, strengthen the wood, but not as much as what I did with the snare drum. Anyhow, same deal, worked like a charm and sounds great.

For heads I went with mostly single ply heads (I'd heard this works well on vintage kits) and did a mix to see which ones i liked better. The evans g1 clear head has a nice warm tone to it on the high tom, the aquarian classic clear on the floor sounds clear and bright. For tom reso heads I tried the attack brand-- I highly recommend these heads as a budget alternative to the big 3 drum head companies.

On the kick I went with aquarian force I which has as great sound to it. I usually used superkick II in the past but wanted something more open sounding and this thing sounds great! Something I learned in this process was using a bit of gulf wax (parafin wax) on the edges helped make good even contact with the edge.

The last couple upgrades I did was install a pearl internal muffler (just 4 bucks!!!) into the high tom to match the one on my floor tom. They work great and I'd highly recommend them to anyone. The second upgrade was i sold the slingly style stick saver rims on e-bay and got some used modern ones second hand (blasphemy I know), but they work great and i like em better.

The drums sounded great to begin with, but after all this relatively minor maintenance, and upgrading, boy these drums SING!

So in short, thanks to all the folks who post here giving good info to cheap musicians like me!!! I got a great kit for a great price and had a blast restoring it the last month or so and would not have without all the great info on this site--- thanks.