This is the floor tom. The wrap is a bit jauntily applied. There look to be filled holes next to where the leg mount brackets are, as if there've been different brackets on there in the past. There's another thing which I'm not sure if it's a filled hole or just a knot in the wood. Underneath the white wrap is just the wood on this one.

Here's the rack tom. Underneath the white wrap is a black sort of vinyl material, leathery looking effect. There are also a couple of holes in the drum that don't go through the wrap.

I had it in my head that the kit was from 1971 going by the serial number on the bass drum badge. Does it look like all of the drums 'go together'? What are they in terms of the type of wood (3 ply, 6 ply etc, how do you tell?!).

I've lots of questions I want to ask as I've never worked on drums before, but thought I'd start by introducing the kit 'as is'.

I didn't get a snare with it by the way, and the hardware I got originally was a mish mash of chunky modern hardware. We bought slm sixties hardware later, and I have some questions about that also to come...

Cheers,

Richard.

Hello. The drums will all be three ply as evidenced by the maple reinforcment rings at the ends of the shell interiors.

One of the drums is a Black Panther wrap which is fairly rare...but not universally desired.

Yes, they are worth fixing because the sound is in those shells.

The badges could indicate an early 70's set...the Black Panther wrap was only available for a few years -late 60's/early 70's-ish (I think)...so you're in the correct ballpark date-wise.

Not much value to them as a collectible anymore due to the "customization" work....but definitely worth fixing for the vintage 3-ply sound.

Cheers O-Lugs. That's good to know they look to be from the same period at least. I wonder if any of the drums were from the same kit originally. I bought a c. 1971 Ludwig supraphonic snare recently to go with the kit (it came with a Premier snare).

I meant to upload this picture also, showing where the previous tom mount has been inside the bass drum also. Do you think the B/O badge on the bass drum is capable of being fixed up to look a bit better?

Would you fill in the small holes in the rack tom shell?

Any ideas about the previous bracket fixing holes in the floor tom, what sort of brackets may have been on it previously, or is it maybe just the same brackets but repositioned to allow the drum to sit higher? I take it there will be a correct distance from the edge that those brackets should be?

Cheers,

Richard.

Is it likely that the holes in the shell on my rack tom (see third photo in set of three above) were once home to a damper? Would the kit have had dampers on the toms originally?

Been doing more looking at photo's online of early seventies kits, and it seems like my toms should have had mufflers AND badges, neither of which they've had since I owned them. The rack tom does have two holes in the shell which MUST be for a muffler, but I couldn't see where one would have been on the floor tom, and neither of them looked to have a filled in hole where a badge grommet had been. I'll have to analyse them with a microscope...

Okay, so I've removed the white 'wrap' from my drums. It turned out to be ICI 'darvic' PVC sheet. Then removed the silver sparkle from the bass drum, and the 'black panther' from the rack tom (that was the most time consuming - it was on with LOTS of adhesive. I was trying not to use a hair dryer so as not to do anything untoward to the wood, but found it made it about ten times easier in the end. Lots more strange little things becoming evident where the previous owner (bear in mind I've had this kit for 17 years) had modified things. I guess back in the old days people weren't thinking so much about things being collectable vintage items in the future, and just did what they had to do to get things to work for them.

As you can see, the floor tom looks rather different from the other two drums. It's not only a lighter shade, it looks to have a lot less grain than the other two.

The bass drum... Well, the filled in hole at the top where it's had a centre tom mount at some point in the past looks quite badly filled to me. I think I'll be trying to do something about that, but not sure yet.

The holes where the spur mounts were are very haphazard looking. Not sure what they're 'meant' to look like, or if I can do anything to tidy them up.

Lots of what I thought was 'cement' at one area of the outside of the drum shell. Someone I showed the drum to suggested that this was probably something like cataloy used to fill in areas that had been damaged removing a previous wrap (i.e. that the silver sparkle hadn't even been the original wrap). :-0

So my next job is to clean the drum up. Sandpaper to the outside? I gather 'goo gone' is recommended for removing residue. I'm in the UK but I'm sure I've seen that somewhere.

The floor tom didn't have a wrap under the white darvic, so the tape they used to (fairly loosely) apply the white darvic is on the drum itself. I'd noticed that the leg mount fixing holes seemed to have been moved, as there were filled in holes inside the drum shell where they had been higher previously. Closer inspection however (thanks Mikey) revealed that the leg mounts on the drum weren't Ludwig ones (I think the legs are Ludwig though). I've now found the filled holes where the muffler was, and I think the filled hole where the badge was also. Again, not sure of the best way to clean the outside of the drum.