Gary, those steel wraps are usually a bear to remove. I would suspect even Pearl used a heavy duty glue to apply them to the wood. We have seen the Slingerland nightmares, and the Ludwigs as well. There is no way of knowing without actually trying one. But then you would have compromised than drums' wrap.

Y'know, it might be possible that Pearl applied it with tape like they do with their current wraps. I'd pull a head off the drum and see if I could slide something thin (strip of metal, needle, whatever) between the wrap and the shell. If you can, then the wrap is probably only held to the shell by a strip of two-sided tape at each end and should be pretty easy to remove.

But if it seems that the wrap is glued to the shell... Personally, I wouldn't try to remove it. You'd be in for a LOT of work.

Most 80's Exports that were covered have Lauan exterior plies,which is not particularly attractive when finished with stain/poly/lacquer etc.You'd be better off applying a new exterior ply to finish-in my opinion.J-stix has had some experience doing INTERIOR plies,which is MUCH more difficult than exterior.

...uhgg...

Can be done.

Lot's of heat from the heat gun and a lot of patience.

[IMG]http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b249/PapaJourney/100_2890.jpg[/IMG]

It can, but the Slingerland has a much better exterior wood to begin with. The african mahogany is much more dense than what the Japanese used and the MIJ wood will splinter like nobodies biness.

True dat............

Is that wrap really stainless steel? How thick is it

I'm not sure about the set in the pics, but I was under the impression up till last week, that mine was chrome plated steel, when I sent pics to Peal headquarters, they had this guy who was a vintage expert and said mine was stainless steel. production was 86-89. in limited numbers, I asked him how rare my set is, he said real rare if it is dent free, I guess the stainless is a softer metal and easliy gets imperfections, and mine is no exception.