Ludwig-dude - I like this plan to restore it too!!! Your drum will again be a tribute to our Veterans!Cool1

As I've perused the catalogs and noticed that they refer to these type of drums three different ways 1) Marching drums 2) Street drums 3) Parade drums, I seem to prefer “Street Drum” it sounds to me more like a player’s term. Not so frilly, kind of like slang. I like street drums!

510...I've found that the VFW paint scheme was not original and I've decided that the drum WILL go back to natural mahogany with natural maple hoops. I've found it exceedingly difficult to get the correct bronze-gold and navy blue colors to paint it in the VFW scheme...and the decals are on backorder too.....while it would be a nice tribute to out vets, I think the drum deserves to be in its original pre-painted state. It may be more valuable to a collector that way too.....I haven't seen very many of this particular model over the years...although there have been similar drums on ebay lately, none exactly like this one...

The mahogany on that drum is really, really nice!

...uh...Dude...I know you are like real close to Keller and all...but you can likely get the hoops way cheaper from www.aitwood.com even with the back and forth cross country trips and fees... They sell 16"X1 1/2" for like maple: 10 ply $15.00 ea and maple: 12 ply $16.00 ea.(ADD 1.00 to each for 1 3/4") And shipping is like 13.00 (don't use the shipping calculator, it is incorrect)...so...I don't get it why they do this, but I guess it's because they don't like dealing with small orders from individuals so you pay a real premium because they set up to deal with larger customers. Anyway, good luck with it.

I noticed that too once the paint was off...hence the decision to go natural finish.

Not sure which is correct but the second one looks like it would be.

I'm figuring that too, but good luck finding one right? LoLoLoLo

Finished with coat number one of clear lacquer for the shell.....pics to come soon....

With that said, I need some advice with the maple hoops. I've been sanding and sanding and sanding and its taking forever to get the rest of the blue staining from the old paint out of the wood's grain. I'm thinking of maybe painting the hoops in a contrasting color to the natural mahogany.....

Any sugestions? It would be nice if you could get natural maple spray paint in a can! LOL!

I found a pic of a similar era drum on the main site in the snare catalog pages where the hoops are painted red and the shell APPEARS to be natural mahogany....not too sure about that combo though. Any input would be appreciated at this point......

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Well, there is a "pickled" stain available, and it is like a pastel, in many colors. You could look into one of those. There are some cool-ish combinations that could be green, blue, pink-ish, a number of wood tones. "Ace is the place...."