Whats been going on.

Well it's been awhile, has in it. I'm well known as a lazy (sporadic) communicator. I went crazy and bought some drums and drum stuff. Let me tell you about it.
   Finished the quilted maple shell, 5.5 x 14. Had a hard time routing the inside on my jig and managed to cut a couple of diggers into the shell. Oh well, can't sell it like that but decided to finish it and see what happens. I stained it with a mid toned maple color and sealed it with shellac. Then did the French polish thing. Looks pretty and warm with the nice figure showing thru. I'd bought some old Gretsch snare lugs on e-bay, so I installed them with some gaskets I made, put my new Trick strainer and butt on and tuned her up with new heads. Bummer, it sounds choked. Back tracking, I thought it might have been the epoxy sealer I used because of the glue starved joints. Or is it the bearing edge, or the snare beds? I'm still not sure. I'll continue fooling with it later. The Trick strainer is quite different from other strainers I've used, but I like the click stop adjustability. I thought I was buying the three position model bought no, this is the regular one. Maybe I'll try it on the next shell.
  Backing up just abit, the pitch pine shell I built was the revelation of the fall. It sounded fantastic, lots of resonance and ring, like a metal shell. It's become my favorite to gig with, tuned in a midrange. So I built another pitch pine shell, this one deeper (6.5inch) and had better luck routing the outside but had to shape the inside by hand. I'm french polishing this one too.
  Anthony at Village Drum www.thevillagedrumandmusic.com agreed to display and consign my teak shell, to see if any builders might be interested. I bought a couple of Dream cymbals from him, which I recommend to any cymbal lover. Great guy and very knowledgeable about drums, especially vintage drums.

  Which brings me to my most exciting acquisition, 79-80 Gretsch drum set. I have a 71 jazz set that I love, was my primary set for years. I found a rock set on Craigslist, called the fellow and went and bought the kit. Sizes are 22, 13 ,16. The shells were covered in contact paper, which when peeled off, revealed clear finished maple underneath. I filled all the various holes with bungs of maple, scraped,sanded and stained blue, followed with clear spray lacquer. They came with old Slingerland hoops which I'm switching out for the die-cast COB Gretsch hoops. Cleaned all the lugs and re-installed with new t-rods. The bass drum t-rods were a mess, but I was able to bend them back into shape. With new heads the bass drum sounds good. The mounted tom sings with a Emperor head sitting in a WFL snare stand. The floor tom needs the die-cast hoops to sound right. They're 75 bucks a pop on e-bay! Need to sell a snare drum. These are all six ply shells and sound like no other, very well made at this rather late date for Gretsch. Looking forward to gig with them. Here's some lame pics.

  Another fun project was turning a funky Kent snare shell with vestiges of glue and wrap, into a nice restored six lug drum. I used a yellow die stain and French polish.