[COLOR="DarkRed"]Beech wood ?

Whatd'ya mean, they look dry ?

Maybe try a fine sanding, 180 or 220 grit, first.... and see if the surface tightens up.

You could use linseed or tung (tung oil is damn awesome stuff)...BUT...it will effect the sound of the drum (positively effect it, in most people's opinion). It changes the density of the interior surface so the drums become livelier sounding...more bounceback goin' on inside there between the heads.

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The shells are 45 yrs old or so. The wood is all dried out. I have heard some people use vasilene and I have heard more people prefer tung oil. I have also read that applying oil to the inside of the shell can make the plies seperate.

Well I went and got some tung oil at lowes and all they had was formby's at it was mixed with varnish. I aint puttin no varnish on these sonors, They had some watkins rejuvinating oil and some old english lemon oil. I got both of them and then went yo ace hardware and got some minwax tung oil. I tested all 3 on a old drum shell and the all look and apply about the same to me.

I chose the yung oil since it's so widly recommended. It sure made the inside of the shell look richer. I wish i had done this to my snare yesterday. This is my first vintage restoration. Next will be my floor tom and then bass, then on to my 68 Luddys.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]It's MAGICAL stuff, tung oil.

One or 2 coats inside just really makes a nice rebounding surface.

If you apply 6 or more coats - after 12 hrs of drying time between each coat - (do 3 coats at a time with a light steel-wooling - - in between the sets of 3 ) by the 6th or greater coat, the shell LOOKS like it has been lacquered...and FEELS way, way better than lacquer.

Holds up well on bearing edges too. It just tightens the density of the wood.

The cool thing is...it's also FOOLPROOF. It's very easy to apply and not screw up. Ya gotta luv that.[/COLOR]

Yo Poppy & Jaye - I was just wondering about this as my old Slingerlands seem on the pretty dry side. The difference however, is that they have the chocolate milk finish inside, albeit thin enough that the wood grain shows through in alot of areas. I was actually considering Almond oil since I have a bit of it that is recommended for oiling my recorders (wind instruments) - but those have smooth unfinished wood inside, so I didn't jump the gun on using it.

Any thoughts on the Slingy's interiors?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Hi.

Interesting Q. I dunno if oils would penetrate the chocolate milk (or if you live in Rhode Island, we can call it Coffee Milk:o) finish or not. i would suspect not.

Also, I think tung is best when applied right to bare wood.

Lemon oil, I dunno...never done that. [/COLOR]

I have refinished a few old Slingerland shells lately and have a couple of thoughts on the Chocolate Milk interior.

The first vintage Slingy I opened up that had the Choc Milk finish made me think that someone had done a cheap restoration job and was mildly color blind about trying to repaint the shell to look like wood (I was obviously unaware of the whole Choc Milk thing at the time - just a first impression).

I stripped this drum down to bare wood and found that the shell had several flaws (see picture). It left me with the impression that the Choc Milk paint may have been there to cover up flaws in the wood of poorly made drums.

The second vintage Slingy I refinished was from the same late 60's era but it had a white painted interior. I stripped this one down to bare wood as well but have left it unfinished, as the shell seemed to be in much better (actually very nice) condition.

I am now working on a third 60's vintage Slingy which is also painted white inside and I am beginning to wonder what was going on with their interior shell treatments back in the day.

My gut reaction to all of this is to strip all of these drums and leave the wood interiors in a more natural state, which is why I like the notion of using Tung Oil.

I will give this a try and report the results to you all. Thanks for the info.

I guess I'm a little more of a purest - as I don't want to alter my Slingers from original. I did try some of my Almond Oil on the inside of my 12" tom - (as I mentioned, Almond Oil is one of the recommended oils for natural wood recorders inside) - It worked quite nicely. I gave it a good "wipe out" (drummer joke?) & hand buff afterward - just not to leave any excess. It gave a nice shine to the choco paint, plus, where the paint was thin, the wood really seemed to like it.

This said, I'm not experienced enough to recommend using it. Also, I won't use it again for the sole reason that I have a nephew who is extremely allergic to tree nuts & nut products. If I drop over tomorrow, I'd hate to see him inherit my drums and go into anaphylactic shock while admiring in his old uncle's cool drums DOH - heh heh

Regardless - I likes 'em original - warts & all Yes Sir

my experience as a wood restorer is with oils on wood is that any oil as lemon or other is non drying and will allow the wood to still breath thus not changing its character buy moisturizing it and stopping it from cracking etc. as soon as u use a oil with a drier in it that is a form of vanish (tung oil is a varnish just slow drying) thus sealing the wood as in gun stocks i like to use a shellac instead of tung oil if i want a seal as it so watery that it still allows some porosity which will let the wood breath therefore not drastically changing the sound as in most old instruments shellac is the finish of choice mostly strings now there are 2 kinds of shellac well really 4 or 5 but im just gonna address the one for this use here and thats the sealer there r 2 wax or no wax i like the wax free as the wax will add a little more protection but will also seal a littel more hope this helps oh by the way it also comes in white hmm