A bit off topic here but when I worked in a music store we bought a used Billy Cobham Tama Superstar set that was wrapped in a black spandex material with gold, red and purple screen printed lightning bolts and streamers on it, the spandex just stretched around the shells and the lugs and brackets bolted back on over it. After removing it off of all 8 concert toms, 2 floor toms and 2 bass drums. Our book keeper kept a few of the pieces and she made a tube top and mini skirt.Of course that was in the 80's...
That was exactly what I was suggesting....without the tube top and mini skirt of course.... The fun part about that is you could quickly and cheaply re-wrap your kit. The guy I saw doing this said he regularly re-wrapped his. When I saw it, the kit was bright purple.
Robyn, I think if you were to use any adhesive it would probably be one of the aresol spray adhesives as mentioned earlier. My guess is that you shouldn't use anything heavier than 3M's Super 77. Also experiment with the "fixative" adhesives as suggested. They are used to hold stencils in place. I have used the Super 77 a great deal to adhere carpeting to shelves, foam in cases etc.
Of course, do some experiments and see what seems to work. It won't take much for fabric to absorb the adhesive and ruin it. If all else fails and the fabric is a no go, consider taking some high resolution photographs of the fabric (the quality of the photos would be VERY important) and take those to a printer. They can print a wrap for you. It will be just like the wraps used for advertisements on cars and trucks. There is some potential for the wrap to bunch up a bit between the lug and rim but you will have the same issue with fabric. You would also have a nice gloss finish when done. The shells would need to be as smooth as possible as any imperfections would show up. Just another idea for you.
