it is oil paint alkyd

If it is indeed oil... and it could be!... it will have yellowed/ambered a bit after 46 years! How does it look? Is it still quite white? So, to check this...

... I dug out the 2nd snare drum my folks bought me, which I still own, and it's a 1965/67 Ludwig 4X14 Downbeat model in Pink Champagne, with the painted white interior. Well, the white is now AMBER!, which means yes... oil based. I would concur on that airborneSFC! With that said, to do a "match", yeah... one will want to find either an acrylic or waterborne and have it custom blended to achieve that "ambering"... if that is the intention of course. Agreed! I do know that at some point Ludwig was using a straight white latex ceiling paint, and that I got right from BIII's recollection. Earlier on though.. yup .. looks like oil!

Tommyp

OK, so its not White Christmas., lol. Thanks for all the input. Im just going to take my ML Campbell fan deck and pick the closets color, good enough. I dont want any house/latex paint that will go bad after a while. My stuff has a very long shelf life and its what I am used to using. Thank you everyone!

Not to send the Ludwig and vintage drum gurus into a frenzy but since it was an oil based interior paint couldn't you just use some plain old Kilz interior oil based primer:

http://www.kilz.com/primer/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=5679559110f23210VgnVCM1000006b0910acRCRD

Sure its not original but it is an oil based primer. I have done some renovations in my time of older buildings and found the kilz also does yellow a little with time.

Well, this got the best of me. I had to remove a head and do some comparisons. I took two pics, one with flash, one without. This is a stock color from ML Campbell called Tenne. I make up these 8"x8" samples everytime I do a job. This looks pretty darn close to me but I am workong with Brent, the color studio expert on a perfect match.

This drum is a pre serial downbeat 4" drum. The paint is sloppy and has runs in it but it is also not new looking. Did Ludwig have sloppy paint jobs back in the day?

By the way, Im posting this info just in case someone would want to have me paint their drum for them down the road. sorry if this boring!

Jeff!

Now this is too funny... as I mentioned in a post a few back on this thread, the drum I checked to get a bead on the interior white paint Ludwig was using during this period, is the SAME drum you are doing here... 4X14 Downbeat ... only in Pink Champagne Sparkle. That said, yes... kinda sloppy for sure on the interior paint, and most certainly so by today's standards! Thing was, back then... it was pure production, not a whole lot of finesse. Your match looks real close/good... ambered just like the original. I suspect that yours will have NO runs though!

Tommyp

Tommy, maybe I should slop it on with a brush to make it more original, lol!

Jeff that color match looks great. I'm a bit of a color geek myself so things like this always have my interest. Yea slop that paint on there good and don't forget the drips~! Laughing H

I got an email from my color studio guy and he looked up that number 333. I had sent him the same pics I posted here and he said his color looks a lot like the one in my pics. So now I am trying to get him to somehow show me his color. Crazy I know. He is a good guy and Im sure he will send me a sample quart for free. Once I get that and get my drums sprayed I will post some pics here again. It will be nice to have the correct color in the lacquer product that I am used to using everyday. Plus it will be a very tough finish that will protect these 50+ year old shells for another 50 years easily. It would have been too easy to just paint them with any old white paint, lol!

Great attention to detail! Keep me posted on what paint you find. By trade I am a carpenter but in my time in the business I have been known to paint. Do you plan on spraying your shells? Ludwig just brushed it on back in the day.