[COLOR="DarkRed"]Welcome !

That's a hecka "wish list"...but more power to ya'...you can do it...I think...with patience.

Here's my opinion:

The Black/Gold Duco is seen far less than the Blue/Gold. Add this to the fact that Ducos, in general, aren't seen too often nowadays, and those that are are usually in questionable condition (peeling/chipped/alligatored/etc.)

You have 2/3 of the Kent already, that's pretty good...so all you really need is a FT type shell.....

Now, Kents are not very sought-after, really. They have their fans, and they have their mojo. But Kent was never shooting for the high-end of the market back in the day. There is a fair amt. of info on the company online. Do a search for "Kent Drums, Kenmore, NY".

Slingys, on the other hand, have tons of fans. But even given this, people don't go as nutz over them as say, Rogers, Gretsch, Ludwig...although they are certainly as good a quality. I think this is because Slingerland took such a dramatic nosedive in the '70's that the name was foever tarnished. Thanks in part to the internet, the pre-nosedive ones are now getting their due...and folks are now learning that back in the day, for a hecka long time, Slingerland was THE leading name in drumsets.

All of this is to say, arguably, Slingys are superior drums than Kents.

Like I said.....if you are hoping to nab matching Duco finishes on eBay or C'list or such...you ill need to be very patient...because the Black/Gold is just a rarer color scheme. If you have some serious $, you can always contact online vintage drum shops and see what they have. But, seriously, their prices are 2x to 4x the price of second-hand market value. Just the way it is.

Duco finishes, being painted, were...back in the day...the cheaper finish alternative to wrapped finishes (pearls, sparkles, glitters). The sound is the same. The drum construction is the same. It was just a matter of lower pricetag and lower costs of producing a painted finish than a wrapped one.

The other alternative is to actually just get a vintage shell, and have it painted Duco. Motorcycle or Auto detail shops can do this and match the colors spot-on....and really, the prices aren't that bad to do such a thing.

Whew...hope this helps some....[/COLOR]

Thanks so much. That was very helpful. I was curious how I might re-create the finish, and your suggestion is a good one. It is much easier to find natural finish Slings on eBay, for example, than ducos, and I could get vintage shells and have them made into ducos. The SOUND is really what I want, but the look, well, we all have our tastes. Getting the sound and adding the look might be the way to go. Thanks again for your suggestions.

sorry to jack the thread:

"Slingys, on the other hand, have tons of fans. But even given this, people don't go as nutz over them as say, Rogers, Gretsch, Ludwig...although they are certainly as good a quality. I think this is because Slingerland took such a dramatic nosedive in the '70's that the name was foever tarnished. Thanks in part to the internet, the pre-nosedive ones are now getting their due...and folks are now learning that back in the day, for a hecka long time, Slingerland was THE leading name in drumsets."

Jaye,

I find this an interesting topic as I have always wondered why despite having them in high regard slingerland drums never sem to attract that "crazy" fan approach. Would you say you can attribute this lack of popularity solely down to the poorer quality that became slingerland later on? remembering that Rogers also badged poor quality drums, Ludwig currently do and Gretsch (despite being the best current imports of the 2) do the same.

I almost feel that it was because slingerland was the leading name and was so popular that they became quite common. Ludwig will always have that bonham and Ringo appeal and Rogers seemed to have an almost boutique reputation and thus today they are almost seen as rarer and grab quite a crazy following, whereas slingerland not quite.

What are your thoughts?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]There are a lotta Slingy fans here who can chime in...but you are on the right track. Arguably...Slingy's hugest endorsers were: Krupa, Bellson, and Rich. This happens to coincide with their heyday of popularity.

You don't see any rockers in that short list. Name me a big-name rocker '60's-'70's who played Slingys.

So that's definitely part of it.

But Slingy was really the first big name to tank so badly. They just kept redesigning their stuff to save production cost; they kept cutting corners. Rogers followed soonafter....but managed to get some minor second wind in the late 70's before expiring.....

Ludwig and Gretsch and even Premier, on the other hand.... "survived" their stupid/bad decisions....somehow. Although one can argue that that survival was partly in name only as a huge part of their production moved offshore, anyway.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Gray"]OK, as you said, we don't want a thread hijack here...so, Golden...the only diff between old Duco shells and old wrapped shells of the era I have noticed is that sometimes the Ducos were a tad wider in diameter thatn the wrapped ones. This wouldn't effect your project, per se...but...I have had a few situations where I wrapped a Duco only to find that the head fit on it was now a real problem....so, just FYI....[/COLOR]

Neil Peart :)

Off the top of my head, Billy Ward from Black Sabbath and the guy from Lynyrd Skynyrd are a couple of rockers that played Slingerland. I'm sure there's a million more.

There's a guy named Donny at drumforum.org that does nice duco finishes.

The hardest drum to find in a duco will be the floor tom..,many times the duco sets were budget sets that were sold without floor toms.

I think a good bet would be to find a deal on a rough blue silver set and have it re-done.

This set's not too pricey right now, but it looks too nice to re-do...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-1960s-Slingerland-Drum-Set_W0QQitemZ220495272157QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVintgae_Drums_Percussion?hash=item33568ad8dd

Amen on that! I've been looking for a year for a black and gold floor tom and decided a couple of weeks ago that I'm just going to get an "era" floor tom and paint it.

Hey fellow head beaters;

Thanks for the replies. No problem "jacking" the thread, JWG. It's all very good info and it's all very helpful, so jack away. Danny "Whatshisnuts", the original drummer for Chicago played Slings as well. He was a big endorser but now pushes DW's.

The comments concerning Ludwig's popularity & staying power are right on. It was almost entirely due to the popularity of the drummers that endorsed them, especially Ringo Starr in the 60's and John Bonham with his Vistalite set in the 70's that kept Ludwig on top. Slingerland lost a lot of visibility by sticking with Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa in their catalogs. Hippie stoners didn't gave a rip about them- they were old school and older generation has-beens. Rock 'n' Roll changed everything...

Thanks GoneDrumming, for letting me know how hard it has been for you to find a Slingy duco floor tom. That's what I suspected. My Kent set is without a floor tom. I knew Kent commonly sold them that way as student sets and was hoping Slingerland didn't follow that pattern. Oh well.

Jaye, your suggestion to find the shell I want and have it painted to match is a great solution. Thanks for your suggestion to use motorcycle or auto detail shops. That's an excellent idea, too. That's all they do all day, right? Match paint colors! Also, you mentioned duco shells sometimes being a tad wider. That is exactly what I found with my snare. The Ludwig batter head I tried first was really tight, and I feared the shell had gotten out of round. I put on a new Evans batter head and that was a much better fit. I'd never encountered that before so thanks for the heads up, pardon the pun. The snare sounds magnificent!! SUPER dry and tight! No ringing, and I don't even have the muffler on! It's turning out to be one of the best i've ever owned.

Rich K, I've been watching that set on eBay. It's actually a black/gold duco! The wierd thing is, I've never seen that spray pattern before!! The gold stripe is much wider than any other Kent or Sling duco I've encountered. My luck to find a complete set in the right color and I still don't like it. There's other duco sets for sale as well. Thanks for the referral to Donny at drumforum.org. I'll check it out.

Here's a tip for all of you about the duco colors. I used to produce video broadcasts of fine ***elry for JCPenney. A funny thing I encountered was that silver ***elry in white light looked GOLD, and gold ***elry in white light looked SILVER. We had to bounce white light off black cards to get it right. I mention this because the photos on eBay can fool you. If you're looking for duco drums, check the auctions carefully. Don't trust the colors!! Blue/silver drums can appear as gold/black and vice versa. I bought a blue/silver Kent shell tom thinking it was gold. Ooops! Some of the pics on the auction Rich K mentioned look like blue/silver. Check it out. It's a weird phenomenon.

Thanks again, all, for your help and information!

GM

Yeah...I looked at that set again and it is black gold. That center strip is unusually large. Interestingly, the floor tom was likely a later addition as the bass and small tom are stage band types. Maybe it was a Slingerland "thing" around this time to make the center stripe broad on the black gold ducos.

That's still a cool set. And the box of extra or missing parts is cool too.

Don't know why...maybe it's psychological, but the duco sets I've had sounded great...they were of the mahogany interior era...maybe that was it.