Any good box store wood primer will be ok. My son used to use Entech wood primer when he was still doing the water base finishes on his guitars.

Thanks for the tip.

I just met the painter for the first time late today. He was recommended to me by the Automotive supplier that mixed my Cadi Green (close to it) paint. He thinks he can paint the drums and do a very nice job. I told him I'd prep as in cover the holes and tape stuff off.

Question:

I will have to tape off the bearing edges

Do you just work the tape around the drum and cut it off?

Just curious about that because I tried to put some tape down today just to see how it was going to go and it is a little awkward but it worked.

What's the best method/technique for doing that? What do drum painters do?

Why isnt the "painter" doing the primer. I would never finish anything that wasnt prepped by me.

JC

I just talked to the painter today and he is doing the primer. All I'm doing now is masking the shells and sanding. He also told me he will go over the shells and if there are any areas that need to be touch up - fill/sand etc. - he will do that too.

Thanks for the reply.

I said that because I deal with home owners that want to do part of the job sometimes and it usually causes problems for me. If i do 100% of the job then there is no questions if its not what the owner expected, only me to blame. Hope I didn't sound to bold, it was just my reaction. Good luck on your project and show us some pictures, Im doing a lime green on a 60's mij kit. It will be interesting to see how the Cad green matches the origional tom. Color matching is one of the hardest things to get right, in my opinion.

JC

You had a post on that a few days ago didn't you?

That should be sweet!

Yes - the Paint supplier had my original drum in the shop when he mixed the paint and he said just what you said here - it's very difficult to match the paint. One of the reasons is that is looks so different in various lighting. He did a pretty good job though. It's not going to be perfect because the original paint is under the Gretsch plastic (Nitron) wrap.

Cant wait to see pics of your drums when all done! The lime green was my daughters idea, its starting to grow in popularity. Ill have it done in a week or two.

JC

It will be nice to see how your drums turn out. My wife's nephew has a PD kit in Lime Green with black hardware. It looks good.

My drums will not be painted right away because I'm still waiting for the 3ply shell that's being built by Will Tillman in Pennsylvania. When it's done it will take a week or two to get here (crossing the boarder). I still have to drill all the holes.......lugs/badge grommet/strainer etc. I've never done that but I do have a very nice Layout Matt so it should go okay as long as I take my time. I'm looking forward to it. I went the 'build new' route only because I was having difficulty finding a Gretsch 3ply shell from the 50's. There's not a lot of them out there.....for sale at least. There is one on eBay right now but it's drilled different than what I'm looking for and it's also not a 6.5" like I want. The Cadi Green snare that Steve Maxwell has for sale now is just what I'm looking for....pretty much exactly....but it's a little out of my price range. I did make an offer but it was politely turned down.