In Photo #2 I can clearly see brush strokes, but that may have been just to clean up missed spots or drips.

VDF User Black Label just did a spectacular job of removing paint from a pearl Ludwig wrap. I’m sure he can point you in the right direction.

Josh

Thank you very much

I’ll reach out

That's weird... they obviously painted the shell with the lugs in place, but since those lugs aren't painted black, someone must have taken the expense of replacing all the hardware.

As mentioned above, check out Black Label's post. You can't get a better example of stripping paint off a pearl wrap.

Mike.

Well, I have good news and bad. The good news is it can be saved! The bad news: it will take you 20+ hours of meticulous sanding to do it right. Start with 200-300 grit until you see wrap, doing like an 8x8 area at a time. Move to 400-600 grit to remove the rest of the paint. Forgot to mention, wet sanding. Use an alcohol/water mix 10/90. Then move to 1000, 1600 and up to a 2000 grit. Once all the paint is gone and you sanded this all by hand, the swearing on the person who painted it sinks in. Get a headlight restoration kit from Walmart. Use it to finish off the sanding all around the shell.

Finally, if you have the intestinal fortitude to get this far, use Novus 2 to mechanically buff the wrap then 1 to hand shine. The results can be amazing! I did an early 50’s Gretsch kit that was spray painted gold over the blue sparkle. Took me over 50 hours to complete, below is a pic of the bass drum during the process. Tedious? Hell yes! Worth the effort? Absolutely! Give your fingers a rest often!

Good luck, take your time, and test a spot first!

Super fine work!!

Cheers

I’m very frightened now. Yikes.

So I guess you are advising against paint stripper, or thinner.

I was planning on starting that approach in a few days.

What about all the paint dust.

I realize that a mask would be necessary.

I’m not sure my hands would hold up to that much sanding.

considering my arthritis. It’s a big drum.

I guess I could give it a go, and a backup plan would be to have Precision re wrap it.

I’m not interested in making money off of it to any great extent Thank you very much for your detailed technique

They can be a LOT of work. But also very rewarding. I posted this a while back. But here is my mid 60's Ludwig WMP 14x14 floor tom that I stripped recently. It did require some major patience.....and a break from it! So glad that I stuck with it though.

Mike

Hi there - I can honesty vouch for lacquer thinners - i used it to clean up the paint over the wrap and all the hardware on my project and it worked just fine without any damage to the wrap.

Before, during and After:

I got 2 coats of paint off shells using lacquer thinner, but that was on lacquer finish, not a wrap. You can try denatured alcohol first if you want to try something milder.

I bought a plastic tub made for mixing cement at Lowes. BEWARE - lacquer thinner will eat through plastic except for #5 plastic. (the hard plastic 5 gal buckets are made from)

Poured an inch or two of thinner in the bottom, dipped the shell in for 20-30 sec and then scraped the soft paint off with a plastic scraper.

DO THIS OUTDOORS!