Glad to be of help, yes the damp sponge is good also the glue will soften the wood up some also, here is a trick after you've forced the glue into the seperation, let it set for a few minutes, wipe the excess off with warm wet towel, then use a blow dryer to setup the glue, so as to keep as much of the glue as you can in the crack. wait 10-15 minutes, then clamp it the rest of the excess will squeeze out wipe it once again with a warm wet towel warm water, 4 hours or so later remove the clamps and your done.as with anything the more you do it the better you'll get at it. keep us posted.

Well, here they are...With my Dad's terminal cancer diagnosis and my wife's spinal surgery all in the last month the set took a bit of a sideline. I skipped a few things I had hoped to get done in an effort to get the set up & running. I did the edges myself...filled them in & glued the separated plys then gave them all a nice sanding - so far so good. I cleaned up the shells nice but didn't actually polish the wrap as I thought I would. Structurally and playing-wise they are REAL sound and I'm thrilled...just finished setting them up around 1am last night. I CANNOT WAIT TO GET HOME FROM WORK AND PLAY!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't have done this without the help of the fine members of this forum and for that I am eternally grateful!!!!! Cool Dude

Thanks so very much!!

Russell

Fantastic job on this restoration! These drums came a long way. It's great to see another kit brought back to life. Enjoy! I know that you will.

Looks great! I'm going to give this a more thorough read tomorrow, as there is some good advise in here that I can apply to my own project. One question (Don't mean to hijack the thread!) Someone mentioned no steel wool on the chrome parts, I believe. I'm wondering why this is? It may ruffle some feathers, but I have used #0000 steel wool many times to clean hoops and lug casings with a lot of accumulated grit and dirt. It has always worked very well, and even upon close inspection I do not see any marring of the chrome plating.

Thanks for the comments...they are great :) I still have some bass hoops coming in...the 22" I'm using only had one to begin with...although that one did come out OK when sanded/painted. I'm using a misc. 22" hoop until the Luddy's arrive. I went with ambassador X batters & ebony ambassador resonants.... Evans EMAD clear batter & an Eq3 reso - no internal muffling. Man these drum sing! They sound fantastic. The only set(s) I have that are close are a couple sets of mid-late '70's Slingerlands with 5-ply shells...which are great in my opinion...but these drums just cry to be played and are so much more musical sounding to my ears. I guess the edges weren't a failure because they tuned up real nice and sound terrific. (I guess time will tell if I have any issues with holding tune) I still have to finish the 24" bass - I just never did get to that with all the chaos lately...but I'll get there...I have already finished the edges but didn't get to any cosmetics on it yet.

I feel like a little kid waiting to get out of school because there's a toy waiting for me @ home I can't wait to play with. Cool Dude The last 2 work days just seemed long as hell!

At 5:30 today I'll be Keep on Pl and smiling!

well done so glad to see it completed as to early remark about what the set is to bad you don't have paper work to document the purchase nice going enjoy the kit