I was planning on taking off the wrap of a 50's slingy floor tom today. It is already cracked in a couple places and thought it would be easy. I pulled a little on where the crack is, and it looks like the wrap is inter-twinned with the wood shell.
I thought I had seen discussions about this on the forum before, but I searched for a time and didn't find it again.
What's the best way to get this wrap off there without splintering the wood more than it already has?
-Kevin
You can try putting lacquer thinner in a spray bottle and spray the wrap where it meets the shell and work it
If you're splintering the wood (as you said you were), I believe you are pretty much done. It's now crossed the line into "doesn't matter". You are now open to whatever works. You might try heating the glue and working that with a flat edge. You could also spray in some adhesive remover while lifting the wrap.
...there's always fire...
Lots of things have been done to work the stuff off. I will level with you, though. I've never really run into a problem with it. My wraps have been either mistreated or seriously aged in a bad way and just POP right off. It's like the glue gave up the ghost years before the shell ever makes it to my hands.
I would do the heat gun method.
Nailfoxx
Are you talking about where the wrap goes under the scarf, or that the wrap is still glued really well to the exterior?
If it's the scarf thing, I think I remember a discussion about that also.
I'll try to run a search for the topic too.
[COLOR="Red"]Found a thread about the scarf thing. Link............[/COLOR]
If the shell is that old, you may want to try alcohol. It will crystallize the hide glue, which is most likely what was used to adhere the wrap. Don't saturate it, be patient.
Good luck...
KevinS,
That is exactly the problem. However, the seem of the wood shell (very very thin piece of wood) has lifted a bit where the wood meets. The wrap cracked right where the wood lifted a touch, I just didn't want to make it worse, or do something really dumb.
I think if I cut and start in a different location, and go 'with the grain' of the wrap and shell, I can minimalize the wood coming up more. Does this make sense?
Yeah, I bought this particular shell because of how bad the wrap had cracked and whatnot. I knew it was going to be a project rewrap and didn't matter. I just can't wait until it's finished!
Thanks,
Kevin
Going the other way sounds better than continuing the way you're going to me.
I pulled the wrap off a bass drum last night, and when it got sketchy, I pushed with a plastic paint scraper right where the wrap was separating from the shell till I got through the tough part. Used a lot of heat at those points too.
This was a sixties shell, without the wrap tucked into the joint like yours though.
Jaye's technique at the joint sounds good to me... I haven't done one of those yet.
