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by dontfeartheringo_Archive
This will be my version of the "A Few New Projects" thread. Two things going right now:FM PWalshJ found an old 22" Gretsch kick that was missing it's front head and hoop but was otherwise intact, if filthy. It was apparently lying on top of some trash cans somewhere in Queens (obviously thrown out because of the lack of a rock scene there). I saw it once when I was at the R/R practice space in NYC and said to Walsh, "If you're not gonna fix that thing up, you should sell it to me." "Yeah, ok, sure," he said, lighting a cigarette and wandering off.Two or three years later, I finally talked him into it. He gave me a fair price on it. I brought it home and soaked all the hardware in Dawn liquid, warm water and Barkeeper's Friend for a couple of days. I scrubbed the shell with Novus. Amazingly, it cleaned up great. When they chromed stuff in the '50s, they chromed that shit for life.I happened to have a couple of old Gretsch toms lying around. They had no covering or finish on them. I got them re-wrapped in "antique white pearl", which is a damn close match. It's not quite yellow enough. I was going to send them out to Chris Heuer ( http://www.heuersdrumlab.com/ ) to get bearing edges cut on them, since Chris is the best guy for Gretsch stuff in the country. I'm now wondering if that's worth it for this kit- the shipping will be $90 each way, minimum. I was thinking about using shellac to tint the shiny new "antique" white wrap to match the older, yellowed wrap. I am now thinking I might just sell this kit along to someone who smokes or plays in a lot of bars and let nature take its course. It should be identically yellowed in a year or so. No point in getting all fancy on it.The bass drum is stamped August 20th, 1952, and has the original round badge. That means it's a 3-ply kick and one of the most sought-after kick drums out there, but the bearing edges are basically square and the drum is not perfectly round. It's close enough to make a nice THUMP, once the bearing edges are cut, though. I may let the buyer decide what to do about bearing edges. You can do a classic Round Badge roundover- very forgiving, very warm. No internal cut, so it's a lot like a classic 3-ply drum (Slingerland, Ludwig, Gretsch) bearing edge. OR a classic '60s Gretsch 30 degree cut, which is the Charlie Watts/Elvin Jones cut. Brighter, harder, more cut, more difficult to tune, but if the edges are done right (and I have a guy in mind), then they'll sound amazing.The other kit is from a deal I did with the help of forum member Offal. I bought a pallet of drums that a guy was selling that were from a school in Denver. Don't buy drums from a school. Kids treat drums like shit. So, FedEx lost one box with two drums in it, and the rest I got were all drilled full of extra holes, die cast hoops were bent and the shells were so oversized that you couldn't get heads on the floor tom without a rubber mallet and a bucket of personal lubricant. The frustrating thing about old round-badge Gretsch drums is there was a long series of shells that they had that were WAY oversized. Some people say that they think this is because the shells were made for calfskin heads, which is technically correct, but I think that the real reason is that Gretsch did a lot of stupid shit through the years, and someone probably got asked "What's the outside diameter of these shells we're making for you supposed to be?" and they said, "I dunno, make 'em 16 inches...." A standard outer diameter should be 15 7/8" or so.I kind of of ate shit on this deal (no fault of FM Offal) and sold a bunch of the stuff off to try and get my money back. I ended up with three shells with hardware on them. I decided to strip off the finish, scrape off the glue and sand the shells and I'm going to shoot them with nitro-cellulose lacquer. I'll replace the die-casts with the new Gretsch 302 "double-flange" hoops. The shells are nice and round and the thicker round-badge shells. If they look good once I spray them, I will send these shells to Chris Heuer. I think these might be my players for a long time. Once I ripped the wrap off of them, heads go on them easily enough. I don't think nitro will add enough diameter to keep them from fitting on.Currently, they've been sanded with 120, 180, 220 and 300 grit. They should take lacquer pretty well. Photos soon.
Redline wrote:Not Crap. The sound of death? The sound of FUN! ScrrreeEEEEEEE