Hey, I'm Riley, I'm new to this site so sorry please lmk if I'm posting This in the wrong section etc. I recently bought a MIJ kit as a project and wanted to show it at its original state, what its like now and hopefully get some information on it and some tips on refurbishing it.
The brand on the snare is Tempo, 14", the tom, floor tom and bass drum are conqueror, 12", 14" and 20".
I bought it for $180 AUD (around $130 USD).
The condition it came in was pretty rough as you can see from the pictures, however I've cleaned it up quite a bit since then. I soaked the hardware in vinegar which has helped remove almost all the rust, and I've recut the bearing edges on all the drums as all of them were in pretty bad shape. I Have also glued the broken bass drum hoop back together and made it as close to round as I could. There were a few spots of delamination in the bass drum and tiny cracks running along the inner ply of it's shell along the screws for the lugs which I've glued.
It sounding pretty good now.
While the wrap for the most part is in fairly good condition, it has faded quite a bit, especially for the bass drum. Does anyone know of tips or methods to get rid of that fade as well as surface scratches etc?
Currently, I've done a good portion of the maintenance I can do on the parts that I have and I need to find replacement parts for what is missing. I want to try to find original parts, mainly the Hoshino tension rods and claws for the other side of the bass drum, the Tom arm bracket attachments and the L Rod cymbal stand, however those are long term Goals. If anyone here has these parts however and can ship to Australia please lmk.
There isn't much information online at all, which seems to be typical of MIJ drums but I've managed to find a little info.
As far as I can tell Conqueror was owned by C Bruno and sons which seems to be mainly known for there production of guitars however there have been a few drums and percussion bits and pieces found by various people. I also found a brochure called "Bruno Progressive percussion" which shows their production of parts and hardware for percussion instruments of a few brands.
Although There are many guitars with a similar font and badge, I have not been able to find any drums by conqueror that have the same badge which the ones I picked up have.
Tempo also seems to be known for there production of import guitars over their drums. Again most of their badges on percussion instruments appears to be different from the one I have. Ive only managed to find 2 other examples of that badge on drums with one having a very similar wrap to the toms and bass drum, and a snare drum. apparently The RM (Rose Morris) initial is mainly an Australian thing, as they were distributed here through the Rose Morris company.
Both of these companies I believe used the Matsumoku factory for manufacturing around the 60s (the hardware on the drums looks like what was used for stencils in the 60s I believe), so its possible that the snare and kit were matched together at the factory? but I'm not sure. Also, a lot of the hardware looks like what was used with Star/ Hoshino drums so its maybe a stencil of Star or Tama or something?
This is about all I've managed to find so far obviously its pretty vague and a lot of it is probably incorrect or misinformed, so if any of you know any more please let me know.
[ame]http://www.drumarchive.com/Bruno/Bruno.pdf[/ame]
https://www.reddit.com/r/drums/comments/ni94zz/anyone_know_anything_about_tempo_percussion_from/
https://www.pinterest.cl/pin/tempo-percussion-drum--360710251396733353/
