Planetoids and Drum Rehab

Well we’re back in business. Last week I was pounding on “The Planets” of Gustav Holst. It was a blast. It’s good to unleash once in a while and not get the hand. Gerry Schwarz was conducting–he has no problem with bass drum volume. In fact, he wanted more! I happily complied.

I’ve also got a couple of snare drum rehab projects going. I dug out some vintage drums that I had in my closet and decided to clean them up. One is a Ludwig Pioneer 6×14 that I got in New York a long time ago. It is missing some hardware, but the drum itself is all original. Here’s the ‘before’ picture.

Ludwig Pioneer

Pretty nasty, no? Well I went at it with some aluminum/chrome polish that I found online and it now looks pretty darn good. Quite shiny. I have to buy new hoops and claws for it, though. When I get all the pieces together I’ll put up the ‘after’ photo.

The other drum I’ve been working on is a very old Duplex snare drum. It’s 15×3 or so, with 10 lugs. Unfortunately, there’s no ‘before’ photo for it.
Duplex Snare Drum
Believe me, it was not pretty. Everything was dull and dusty. To my amazement, it cleaned up beautifully. I put a calf head on it to match the vintage vibe. It’s not sounding that great, but I think it’s a collector’s piece, not something that would be played on (at least by me). I might decide to sell it at some point to someone who is more of a vintage drum collector.

Posted on: December 14, 2006, by :