I use thick fender washers, available at any hardware store. They are like regular fender washers, but are about three times as thick. I use those on either side of the spur mount (inside and out), and they really help support.

Mike,

It looks like these ended up in the proper hands. I am excited to see how it comes out.

I didn't realize the floor tom was only 1 ply. I have never seen that before in these old drums.

Jack

Hey Jack! I didn't realize you were on these forums...though I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. :) Thanks again for the sale, I was planning on sending you "after" photos, but now I won't need to. By the way, I just saw the BDP Whitehall kit you posted (http://vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=57500); I remembered seeing it on Craigslist back then and was tempted to buy it!

I was surprised to see the floor tom was a single ply as well. I recall reading somewhere (possibly here) that 60s MIJ shells were typically 1- or 3-ply with re-rings. I can't wait to get hoops and a bottom head on this thing to hear how it sounds.

That Whitehall was a nice little kit. The 14" on it was pretty good. I had considered painting the interiors on that kit, like I had with the kit you now have. Cleaner look and would probably add some projection, would be my guess. But, I did not alter it in any way.

I had thought about keeping the 14" you bought and adding it to some of my other stuff, but thought the matching wrap with the other drums would make someone a fun little kit to play if they put some time in to removing the contact paper and the residue. I just didn't have the time to do it myself.

Well, I still haven't gotten around to removing the contact paper from the bass drum; in fact that will be the last drum I tackle because I cracked about a 1x2 inch corner on the seam of the original wrap which the contact paper is keeping from falling off the drum. It's repairable though and won't be seen as it's on the bottom of the drum.

So tonight I started putting lighter fluid to the 13" tom to see if I could get rid of the glue and it's working quite well (thanks again vyacheslav), although it's slow-going. Got about 1/3 of the surface glue-free in a little over an hour. It's looking good, though I really want to see these beauties after a polish and in sunlight. The pictures don't even remotely do it justice.

Please ignore the dust and hair, the latter courtesy of our yellow lab...

Took a few more this morning in sunlight. If you look closely at the 3rd pic you can see there is some very slight fading (more like darkening) on the exposed wrap--compare with the rectangular spot where the mount was located (4 holes). Not in bad shape at all.

RE: middle re rings. My early 60's Stewart bass drum has the middle ring...can't recall if the floor tom does or not. I also have a late 50's/early 60's Pearl floor tom with a middle ring as well...not super uncommon with certain era's of MIJ kits. I've attached pic's of the floor tom.

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks Trilok! Yeah, this is my first foray into vintage Japanese drums, so I'm guessing center re-rings aren't too uncommon for this era.

Thinking out loud here: Because there are so many parts missing on the whole kit, I'm not too concerned with keeping it all original. I'm leaning toward making this a nice looking player's kit, restoring it as inexpensively as possible (but not cheap). So with that said, I'm trying to decide what to do about the bass drum hoops. The drum only came with one; it's metal and either painted or coated black, but not in the greatest shape. The inlay is in tact, but really dull. So my dilemma is, do I try to restore the hoop and buy a second metal one, buy two new metal hoops, or go with wood hoops? And secondly, the inlay might be salvageable, but a new piece for the second hoop would likely not match very well (then again it may not match the whole kit all that well).

The hardware from the 13" spent the last 24 hours in a jar of vinegar, and tonight they were cleaned with a toothbrush, rinsed and dried. Other than losing two lug inserts (I'm no chemist, but I suspect they were made of a different metal than the others which didn't react well to the vinegar), I can't complain about the results.

First pic is before, the others after. See the two oxidized inserts in the top right and top left corner, respectively.

The vinegar bath did a fantastic job on the chrome. Did you use regular white vinegar, red cider vinegar, etc.?