[COLOR="DarkRed"]Ooooh...too bad. I think that one is beyond keeping the original finish.

You can strip and either lacquer or tung-oil finish it and have a wood-finish snare...or...a motorcycle or auto painting shop can actually paint a duco finish on a drum...they have the proper equipment to do a really good job. So you can get them to match the original color and do that, too.

Man, that particular combination of colors, you don't see that hardly ever. It's very cool.....[/COLOR]

what do you use to remove the paint? a very fine sandpaper?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]YOu could sand it off...or use a liquid paint stripper.

If you were to get it repainted, you would then need to fie sand it down to probably 220 grit smoothness..start with 80 grit, go to 120, 180, and finish with 200. The surface has to be really fine-sanded if it's gonna be repainted.

Also, a paint stripper/remover tends to open up the grain of the wood, so that is another reason to fine sand it.[/COLOR]

I plan to convert the snare to a natural wood color. Maybe just put poly on it after removing the paint.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]OK, see how it cleans up then...sometimes with Duco finish, there are still miniscule bits of color left in the grain of the wood.

...may I also suggest using Tung Oil instead of Poly as a natural finish....it is more labor intensive but looks and feels much nicer....[/COLOR]

Gotta jump in here with what works for me. I use a red devil brand 1 inch scraper, kept sharp with a file, and a heat gun. Be careful with the gun, keep it moving. The paint will come off easily. Then I sand with 80, 120 then 220. I have a 1960 Pioneer that was factory white with the finish failing so I finally stripped it and low and behold, there's this beautiful figured maple veneer underneath the paint. Now it's varnished, beautiful.

ooooh, post some pics of that bad boy.Cool1

I would also suggest a once over with mineral spirits or denatured alcohol after the final sanding. It will show you if you left anything behind and need to sand some more. Better to find out this way than to let the poly or tung show you. I found that out the hard way.DOH

Thanks for the posts. I think I have the "how" part down. The question now is "IF" I should do it. A couple of people (drummers) cringed at the idea. They say "don't remove the original paint." I think it looks horrible. The paint falls off if the slightest breeze hits the paint. It flakes to the touch. I think I will go forward with the stripping. Any thoughts ?

I say remove that old paint - hell, it's removing itself. I'm all about preservation, but in this case it's beyond preserving. Plus, I really like natural finishes.