The inner ply is birch, the rest is lauan. These are actually very good shells, and not the crap of many other Asian firewood lauan kits du jour. The quality is up a couple of notches from the typical Pearl stencil brands that were also popular at the time. I should know, since I've owned an early-70's Y-badge kit since '76. Best $100 I've ever spent.

You can put ANY heads on those, but they really sing with 1-ply coated heads.

BTW- I just reviewed Yamaha's new Gigmaker entry-level kit for MD. These sport basswood/poplar shells, which were perfectly formed and machined. Yamaha STILL knows how to make a great budget kit, better than anyone else, in my opinion.

The more I think about it, the more I want to make a better drum of it.

I will need all the help I get. At the beginning I must warn you that I don’t have many options for buying parts, so I will use what can be find in stores here.

I will try not to spent too much money on it.

But there is a lot of issues about it. Former owner try to do something and he did it all wrong. He put new wrap over the old one. So I think I need to take it off,

And rewrap it. I was wondering what to put instead of original wrap. There is nowhere to buy drum warp(also cant afford it), so I will have to put something like furniture wrap or …. I don’t know what is the best ????

The second thing is that he cut the 14’’ tom , which was probably the floor tom. He made it shallower but he didn’t recut bearing edge. But I think that I find somebody who is gonna do it, perhaps on every drum (20’’ 14’’ and 12’’). Also I not sure, if I do that , what angle to make ??? I say again that I don’t want to make it like original, I want to sound the best he can.

I not planning to do anything fast, “think twice, cut once” - al old saying….

There is also a question, how it is gonna stand in kit, but all will thing about when the time comes….

I am not doing anything until I plan what to do with that bearing edges. I will try to shoot some good pics of it, and put it here so you can know more about condition…

That is all for now. Thank you and pardon my maybe annoying bad English….

Marko! Find a cabinet maker and have him cut the edges at 45* inside and outside, double 45* edges and single ply heads will make these scream. The wrap on them, the ugly blue, is a contact paper and should come off easily. If you are going to take off the old original wrap, I would suggest replacing it with a wood veneer, like a maple or bubinga.