Oopsies! Prepping to refinish/refinishing

**Mike_L** · 10-10-2011, 01:56 AM

So my dad brought to my attention today that my old, crappy, never used, first drum set has been sitting around taking up a lot of space and he told me that I need to give them to Good Will. But I didn't exactly agree with that since, as beginnerish as they are, they are my first drums ever and have a lot of sentimental value.

Earlier tonight, I thought of something that should've crossed my mind much sooner: Refinishing! I can turn these guys into a fun project and put them to use again.

So I began: I took all the hardware off the floor tom (Just picked a drum at random to start with), and began peeling off the already loose wrap. However, when I got to the end, a nice strip of the top ply stuck to the glue and left me wondering, how am I going to fix this?

Since it's only a very thin strip, I was thinking I could just use some kind of wood filler and then sand it even. PLEASE correct me before I waste my time.

Also, what is the best way to prevent this from happening to the rest of the drums?

Thanks guys!

**trickg** · 10-10-2011, 09:08 AM

You can use a warm iron to heat the adhesive on the wrap, but be careful that you don't heat the shell too much, or else you can warp the drum itself.

As for a way to "fix" it, I see two ways to do it and have it come out looking good.

1.) fill it in with wood filler, smooth it out, and then re-wrap your drums with a wrap

2.) fill it in with a wood filler, and then cover the drum with a veneer before doing a refinish.

You should check out some of the veneer jobs on the GhostNote forum - if you don't know of it, it's a site for guys who are really into building their own stuff, or rescuing old drums and refinishing them up nice. Once you decide to go with veneer, there are literally dozens of options - everything from figured tamo ash, figured maple, walnut, spalted woods of various types, etc.

I got an account at GhostNote when I decided to do my first snare build - nothing fancy, more of a finish and assembly project than anything else, but the end result is the snare that is one of my two main snares. They cover every subject from finishing, hand rubbing, lugs, bearing edge modification - you name it, if it has something to do with drum building, you'll find it there.