very groovy set and quite cool!

Good looking reto so far as well!

That's going to be a nice one when you get it all cleaned up. Thanks for sharing all those photos. As to your question about Remo Sound Masters, those also came standard on my 1966 Crown kit, so I'm assuming it was a budget line for MIJ drums of that era. A new set of Ambassadors will make your kit sound pretty sweet. Have fun with the resto.

I promised the seller that I would get everything cleaned up and tuned as is and then get some pics and possibly videos for them. I won't be switching anything until that point.

After that point, new heads, new hardware, etc... My goal is to make it sturdier and easier to play/tune. Currently the hats feel spongy because of the stretching of the leather. The heel of the bass pedal constantly swings out to the right as I try to use it. The heads are pretty limited in their pitch and have very little range between that flappy too loose sound and twangy marching tenor sound. So it's pretty rough to tune, but I've dealt with worse. For now, the toms are a bit lower than I would like so I hope new heads can bring that up a bit.

There is of course a WAF (wife acceptance factor) involved, so I can't go out and blow a couple hundred bucks at once for everything, so outside of cleaning, scrubbing and shining, this will be a project for some time.

I used to travel locally to teach private lessons at my students homes. On top of that, I worked as a drum instructor at various schools and played with various churches. As you can imagine, I have played a lot of different sets through my years. Without sounding like some crazy hippy, the feeling I get behind this kit is simply euphoric. There is a connection and a soul to this kit that I have never felt playing any other sets.

Tan

That is a great find! I am sure once you clean it up and get good tuned heads on there it will bring you much more joy than now (as thrilled as you are now). Tuning your heads higher will not warp the shells. I am assuming you don't crank your heads like a kevlar top snare head on a marching drum, and if you do you are not getting the rich tones out of your toms that they are designed to deliver. Tune the heads to the shell and then muffle to your desire, or better yet, use studio rings, and they will sing with rich beauty! I use those old MIJ cymbals as effects crashes after I clean them up. Sometimes the smaller ones turn out sounding like little Chinese splashes. They can add a little dirty sound to a crash (crash along with a higher grade modern cymbal). If your hands/arms get tired from polishing, try soaking in Dawn/water. This will require 24-48 hours of soaking time, but will be much easier on you, and you will be amazed at the results. Just use a toothbrush on them and dry and you are done. Anything not removed by that process can be polished off with your Neverdull. The edges can be repaired by a local drum restorer/drum builder. He can do so without re-cutting into a different style of cut. Just search by asking around local music stores, or you can even call a shell provider (Anderson Trading In Anaheim, Precision, and Keller dealer, etc. and they can probably refer you to one of their customers close to you(who are also drum builders and hence probable edge cutters). A good price for a job like that would be about $15 per drum. I take like 15 drums at a time to my guy about once a year.

Have fun!

John

YAY pics!

They look really sweet and after you're done with all the polishing, they'll be great. IMHO, don't rewrap them. They're nice and complete, it'd be a shame, since the wrap is not cracked or anything, just discolored.

Okay, got a couple more pictures. I didn't get too far today and probably won't get much further until next weekend, but wanted to continue with updates.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/357cfa65b00051c35a031cb3e770a3b43209634a2032b46e7ef6e2312b353b706g.jpg[/IMG]

I finished up the 13 tom for now and remounted it on the kit. The difference in the chrome isn't quite as noticable from the picture, but IRL, it is pretty drastic.

So, moving on to the Snare:

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/2b1d6ea8f6392819fa841a8eb7b341a0972a482086d1ff7a16f25ad024b327186g.jpg[/IMG]

So any place dust could could hide there was a nice little build up. You can see the fuzzyness on the rim in this picture and also below in between the shell, collar and rim.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/d1dc92685831f221c64a3d0c6c53e96d8c011a4db1a155459c495d700d23f4dc6g.jpg[/IMG]

Removing the strainer. This had the most dust inside of any other part so far.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/72534bafda9cf5b025c7133314d34f17325ecfd43bf71cb16c566c97aaf0a0af6g.jpg[/IMG]

And here are the inner working of the strainer.

So that's pulling of the hardware. Next up, looking over the shell.

Tan

I only got a few pics on the Snare Shell, but here we go.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/ab93e598b1d06f46ea5cef95fdaec0f04effcd8cc1a36795d386b4009459a2536g.jpg[/IMG]

Inside of the shell, strainer side. I thought this was interesting because there is an extra piece of wood glued where the strainer attached. Also, snare beds. The shell/wrap is a little soft on the outside around the larger hole for the dial so I suppose it makes sense to add the wood. I've never seen that before, is that common with thinner drums or softer woods?

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/aa3a87cfd86e896cb5498be433e6546ca3861b40fd421e76d084522500bb05466g.jpg[/IMG]

Butt side. Notice the beds, notice the extra wood. Not much else to add, except those blocks of wood make sanding a pain.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/conv/e9b01bccf83681baaf1e6c5804326a5794427bc1446bde96300ebb0d493bb90f6g.jpg[/IMG]

I'm trying to get a picture of the bearing edge here. The Snare edges were by far the most even of all the heads I have removed so far. The dark line on the edge is where the plys have some overlap. I ran some 220 grit over the whole edge to smooth everything out just a bit, but really I don't think I needed to do that at all.

So, that's it for now. My arm/hand is sore from scrubbing, sanding and cleaning I'll do a bit this week but probably won't get to much until the weekend.

Tan

If I were you I'd be calling in sick for the week and locking myself in the garage. That set is going to look incredible.

Oh I thought about it.

I didn't take any pics tonight as everything I did was pretty boring and straight forward. I finished shining chrome on the snare and reassembled. I elected to only sand the inside of the snare due to the extra pieces of wood that are glued in making it difficult to maneuver around in there and keep any work even. It isn't perfect, but much better than before

I also cheated what I said earlier about not changing any heads until after I get some video and stuff. I put on a brand new ambassador snare side head since the sound master snare side head had a few small rips and gouges in it. I'd rather keep what is left of the old head intact then damage it more by keeping it under tension and playing with it.

So, little lesson learned that might help out others. On my Stewart Snare, there are two different length lug screws. You get two that are a little longer than the rest. I assume they came from the same lug and although I'm not 100% sure which lug they came from, I put it back on the lug that covers where the plys and wrap overlaps. The shell is a hair thicker there so I'm guessing the extra length is to cover the thicker part of the shell. At least, that is the only logic I could come up with for doing that.

To do:

Floor tom

Bass

Stands/Pedals

Cymbals

Tan

Okay, here are some updates from the week.

I finished the Snare.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/7906/263st264pwjbjz25g.jpg[/IMG] Snare strainer shinny. There was a picture I put up earlier of how this came off the snare, so I thought it would make a good contrast on what a little cleaning can do.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/9a45/673y6g3h32ka1575g.jpg[/IMG]

Here is a pic of the snare side head that I removed. I didn't want to rip it more, so figured it was best to remove it and keep it.

Moving on to the Floor Tom:

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/cd94/r4wmso4pjr2uue55g.jpg[/IMG]

So, the Floor Tom wrap looks the best of all of the drums, the hardware is the worst. The chrome had more pitting and bumps in.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/a6d5/ggecpw4jg4tmzx85g.jpg[/IMG]

There was a little separation in the plys near the bearing edge. I filled that with some wood glue and let dry.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/c95a/duoa7q9692g9gch5g.jpg[/IMG]

So I wanted to point out the inside of the floor tom has TWO overlaps of the shell. This was before I did any finishing on the inside.

[IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/1c1a/fz3zdogzbgr1ej25g.jpg[/IMG]

A little bit of rust found on the dampener.

Tan