Rule of thumb with clear finishes, dark wood gets lighter, light wood gets darker.

I don`t know why but I bet Jeff does.

I wish I could give you an intelligent answer but I have no experience with that product. I know teak oil will darken natural wood and bring out the natural colors. I cant see that being much protection, i would use some varnish.

I just don't know how to brush on varnish without making it look streaky or blobby. Can you recommend a product?

Clear poly and a foam brush might work. Wax afterwards to give it that more hand rubbed look and less plastic-ey. Nice work so far!

-Doug

Tung oil may work since the stain is oil based. Test it first- if it's not compatible the tung oil will never dry... wanna talk about a mess?!??

If you used a Minwax stain, use their satin poly on top. You can brush that (with the grain) and get an ok finish. Spend the money on a brush- don't skimp there. You could also put three coats and then block it out with 400 then 600 to flatten it out.

The tung oil (if it works with that stain) you can just rag on. Buff with 0000 steel wool between (3-5) coats. That'll look nice. But TEST FIRST!

Thanks again for the suggestions. I think I'll try a satin poly (or matte if I can find one). It is a Minwax stain I used.

Another question - brass eyelets/grommets. I need to buy a few, but the prices from Jammin' Sam and other wrap places are a little crazy ($4 each!). Is there anywhere I can order a small quantity of these eyelets and pay a fair price?

drumsonsale.com has them for $1.85 apiece.

https://drumsonsale.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=ludwig+grommet

Thanks Vater. Still seems pretty steep - my local hardware store has bags of 7/16" size - 500 pieces - for $5. That's one penny each. But to my knowledge, Ludwigs have a 3/8" breather hole :/ - the search continues.

That maple looked nice in the plain bass drum pic. If you had just wiped those drums down really good with two or three coats of Tung oil, letting each application dry a couple days to penetrate the wood and dry. It would have brought out the grain and looked beautiful natural. Then Four coats of lacquer with a light sanding in between coats. I used spar marine polyurethane on mine. You Could have a beautiful natural wood set. That Tung oil penetrates and dries hard and protects the wood. I did that to these old PDP EZ series shells. The sheels were actually pretty nice and were as light or lighter than yours before the Tung oil applications. The pic doesn't do them justice. The grain was more pronounced in person. They were mahogany shells. I regret selling them last year.