Hey Brian, Welcome to the forum!

Congrats on your fist kit! With 20 years experience handling drum sticks, applying many of those same patterns to the kit will allow you to progress at Warp speed.

Take them apart down to the bare shells. Check all the bearing edges carefully for bad dings or damage. Go over them with 00-00 steel wool to clean them up a little. The rest is elbow grease. Clean, polish, clean polish etc. You get the idea. Just know that it is a cumulative process, taking care with each step along the way will produce a stunning end result.

Great finish on those. Probably some nice aged Luan shells (look for dark wood interior with a vertical grain,) and you can use a snare stand for the rack tom until you track down the appropriate arm. You might want to ask Mikey777. If anyone here has one, it'll be Mike.

Look forward to seeing photos of the finished product.

Enjoy...

John

Welcome Brian,

Those will be some sweet looking drums once you get them cleaned up. Like Purdie Shuffle said the first thing is to take them down to the bare shells. On badly rusted items I use Evapo-Rust. It comes in a 1 litre plastic container, is non toxic and does not contain acids. You just place the rusted parts in a plastic pale and put in enough liquid to cover the parts then let it sit overnight. The stuff is amazing. Parts that I thought were ruined came clean. With the wrap I, like a lot of other members, use Novus polish #2. It will polish out small scratches & oxidation and make the wrap come alive again.

I know you want to get behind that kit and give it the what for, but the big thing is to take your time.

Welcome to the VDF!! There are a few MIJ specialists here on the Forum that can offer you advice...Jonnistix, cn679. Mikey777, Ralf, etc...There is a vast amount of knowledge in these fellows...

Good luck and keep us posted!!

Cheers

VERY cool snag! Cheap too! Good job!

Yeah, you'll like those. Have fun with them!

Thanks for the tips!!! I'll plan on spending a considerable amount of my winter recess on this project. I like the idea of a non-toxic rust remover, if the clean-polish-clean-polish process doesn't give me the results I'm looking for.

I've been playing a 3 piece recently, so am in no rush mounting hardware. I do have an extra snare stand, though...just in case.

...now the wait...

Hi Brian, and Welcome! I normally don't like to contradict my fellows, but this is very important...NEVER, EVER use steel wool on any parts of your drums, with the exception of screws and nuts. If you follow the link in my signature to my youtube page, I have set up several restoration video tutorials. Rust is one of those things that is greatly debated across the site. I apply a liberal amount of first mineral oil, then apply some Turtle Wax Rubbing Compound and let it "soak" for about 15 minutes. I use a number of items, from cotton t-shirts to brushes to steel wool, but only for it's intended purpose of cleaning out the threads of screws and nuts.

I have, for the main purpose of cleaning rust off of surfaces, a spinning brush, like a toothbrush. It is called the "SonicScrubber" Pro Detailer. You can use a spinning toothbrush as well, but make sure you have a supply of rechargeable batteries, or regular "AA"s. I keep a ready supply of rechargeables on hand for the express purpose of detailing my drums.

1) Mineral Oil (I have not found anywhere that WD is more desirable than mineral oil, and mineral oil is CHEAP and lasts forever~you can get a pint for like $2.00 in the baby section at Mal-Mart)

2) Turtle Wax Rubbing Compound

3) Variety Pack of all 4 grades of steel wool, 00 thru 4-0

4) Used cotton t-shirts, skivvies, socks are a must,

5) Screw gun with adjustable torque/1-4 and drill lock, using #1/lightest setting to drive any nuts/screws on etc. and multiple bits, including a drill bit drum key ( http://www.musiciansfriend.com/search/search.jsp?sB=r&question=drill+bit+drum+key+ )

6) Eagle One Wax as You Dry and a water bottle/sprayer from the Dollar Store and a good, clean, soft 100% cotton cloth. Lightly spritz on some water, then follow it with a light spritz of Eagle One and polish away, leaving your sell polished and protected.

7) Many others will suggest Novus 1,2 & 3 for shell restoration. I have never used it, but I hear noting but good, so if you can afford it, go for it.

This should be enough to get your head swimming...er, I mean get you started.

Thanks for the laundry....rather, restoration list, jonnistix. This is helpful and not overwhelming.Walking

Just to clarify though...

-apply mineral oil then rubbing compound (before cleaning off the mineral oil) and repeat as many times as needed.

-Steel wool for tension rod threads only.

-Car wax for the wrap.

-#1 setting when attaching lugs to shells.

Anything special for the interior of the shells?

Also, I'm gonna need new batter & resonant heads. Does anyone have ?

The perfect case for NEVER using steel wool on any metal surfaces, chrome, brass or otherwise. It dulls the finish, no matter how fine the count. I don't care if you can get 5-00, it will still dull the surface, period. The full thread on this snare is in the "Restoration" section, seen below the link for the pic.

http://vintagedrumforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36750&d=1323690734

http://vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?p=158002#post158002

You can sand the interior of the shells to 100 or even 220 grit and brush on 2-3 coats of lacquer. Also a no-no is polyurethane. Poly is liquid plastic and will thus encase your shell in plastic, the wood never to breathe again and lending a "plastic" tone to your drums, as the lacquer will allow the wood to breathe because it is made from wood components, caustic yes, but a more "natural" solution. Others use tung oil, I find it a bit too fussy when you can just brush on lacquer and be done with it.

As for batter heads, I think you can get outfitted with new Z-100's for about an average of 17/head if you look carefully. I know this is a bad word, but try GC or Bentley's and ask them first for a 14" Aquarian Z-100 snare head. They should have boxes full for less than 10 once you test drive the snare head, you can then go back and ask them to order the others. As for reso heads, any single ply will work, try the old take offs for a while, and then as you can afford it, replace them one at a time.