Yes, indeed they are!

magnificent.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Mike...gorgeous...I actually, amazingly, stumbled upon an identical kit....sitting in the garage of someone in the backwoods of Sonoma, CA. I am currently in process of renovating it, bringin' 'er back (no snare, though :( ) Also, only half of my B & B's survived, so I had to pony up for JP2 Creations repros on the rest (ouch $...but gorgeous repros).

Question: are the hoops' inlays original ? This is the second time I have seen a Rogers Mardi Gras kit with gold inlays in the hoops...and one of the surviving hoops came with my kit...gold inlay...but I figured it was an after-market change.

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[COLOR="DarkOliveGreen"]Also, did you reinforce the B & B's or are you just using 'em in original state ? if so, what kinda heads are on the drums. I have been told to go with thin heads and low tuning to keep the tension off of those B & B's (which reputedly were never really designed for the higher-tensioned plastic heads, but rather calfskin heads). There is a method I learned over at ROF for reinforcing these sorta lugs with a metal epoxy product on the insides of the casings.

I have another snare with B&B which were uncracked, but I cracked 2 of 'em while tensioning the snare head...so I now do the tuning on B&B drums very....gingerly.[/COLOR]

Josh & Jaye Thanks!

Jaye, the inlays are actually ginger-ale faded sliver sparkle. Rogers Mardi Gras sets came with silver sparkle inlays.

"Also, did you reinforce the B & B's or are you just using 'em in original state ? if so, what kinda heads are on the drums."

I have done nothing with the B&B lugs, there are 2 hairline cracked snare lugs - since I don't play out as a drummer, these drums are only getting light use in my basement. So I am not really concerned about too much stress being placed on them. I do have a set of JP repro lugs for another b&b snare shell that I had purchased as a project. I am going to use them on this snare now so I can swap out the originals and keep them safely set aside though.

All the heads have been replaced with newer Remo ambassadors, except the bass drum does still have it's original Rogers heads. I am think the original snare heads were Diplomats on top and Ambassador on the snare side. I do think the toms were Ambassadors on both sides - maybe TommyP may shed some light on this.

On the B&B lugs, I had a snare that was Silver Soldered, I think in the same way that you described, but these are basically just as they came from the factory.

Mike

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Thanks for the info on the inlays. OK, so now I know.

Yeah, keep a careful eye on those orig. B & B's.

And actually, I just noticed...you have the holier grail...your FT is the 14x14 Eye Ball...mine is a 16x16.

Dang....if ever there's a kit which should NEVER be sold....[/COLOR]

MikeJTone: Flat out gorgeous! One of my favorite wraps.

If you ever consider selling these, please keep me in mind.

Thanks OldSchool, I've had a couple requests but no plans - I will let you know though. Aren't you in the Detroit area?

Yes I am. I grew up in "The Motor City" during the golden era of "Motown!"