Picked up this kit for $150 back in December. 24" Fibes kick, 14" and 16" Premier toms. All early 70s from my best guess. The Fibes is black fiberglass, likely Martin-era. The toms are 3 ply mahogany with birch re-rings. There was a chrome wrap under the green house paint on the Fibes. The Premiers had been unwrapped and painted directly on the wood. Missing some parts, notably the bottom hoops on the toms, and one lug on the floor Tom. The kick spurs were not original.

• Fully stripped all paint. There were at least two layers inside the kick, white over the original factory black. The green stuff came off pretty easily
• Patched unused/extra holes (tom mount in kick, misplaced spur mounting holes, tom muffler mounting screws) with fiberglass or bondo, and fixed a chewed-up bearing edge on the kick with bondo.
• Sanded, primed, & painted interior of kick with matte black hammered spray
• Wiped a couple coats of Danish Oil inside the toms
• Full rewrap with the cheapest, most ridiculous wrap I could find on ebay
• New grommets installed with homemade grommet tool
• Fully disassembled all the lugs, then polished
• Replaced one missing floor tom lug
• Replaced a stripped Fibes lug
• Fabricated new lug inserts for the resonant sides
• Soaked a bunch of cruddy parts in rust remover
• Replaced all screws with stainless
• Replaced a bunch of tension rods
• Replaced missing resonant-side hoops with triple-flanged, batter side are the original die-cast
• New resonant side heads on the toms
• Drilled and mounted modern bass drum spurs in the right place
• Stripped, sanded, & painted the one good kick hoop with black lacquer. One was cracked and I couldn’t get it to glue up strong enough, so I had to replace with a new one and paint that one.
• Got some used cymbals (Sabian AA, 14" regular hats, 16" thin crash, 21" medium-heavy ride converted from a handheld marching cymbal) from drumforum.org and reverb.
• Cleaned the oxidation from the cymbals with Barkeeper’s Friend
• New extended height snare stand to hold the rack tom (I had the other stands already)

A: That’s an amazing and beautiful Job. I’m inspired to do something similar now for my 8 year old begging for a kit.
B: I think I have that exact bookshelf in the background, haha.

Frankie99 wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 9:05 pm B: I think I have that exact bookshelf in the background, haha.

Does it fold flat, on hinges? My wife has had it for years. Told me it was actually a plant stand, but it seems way more like a folding bookshelf to me.

Yes, that’s it. It’s in the corner of my living room. Had it probably 15 years now, I don’t even remember where we got it.

Nate!
Holy cow! Amazing work!

Those Fibes kicks have PUNCH. I really like Premier toms, too. I bet that kit sounds amazing.

If I'd known this thread was a thing, I would have documented the restoration process for this Ludwig Monroe Badge Super Sensitive. I've never had a Super Sensitive before and was curious how it would do with brushes. Now that it's restored, I've learned that the SS is really crisp and dry, like a Rogers Dynasonic. I kinda don't dig it for heavy rock or Americana. So it's up for sale.


It looks cool, though.

I wanted a deep wooden Gretsch snare in black lacquer with a Microsensitive throw. Gretsch doesn't make those, but after seeing this Tony Williams video, I realized that Gretsch wooden snares have the most amazing dynamic range, so I decided to build one.



It started as a $45 14" concert tom shell on eBay. I used a chemical stripper to get the finish off.
I sprayed a couple of dowels with aluminum spray paint to match the Gretsch "silver sealer".

A little wood glue and some light taps with a hammer to get the dowels in place. You can see where they drilled right through the paper tag to put a tom mount on the drum. Must have been after lunch on a Friday.

I trimmed off the dowels and sanded everything flat.
I don't have any photos of the process of trimming the shell down and adding holes for the resonant side lugs, cutting snare beds, etc.

Here is a photo of the drum with all of the hardware I ordered fitted before painting:
And here's the day I went outside and lacquered everything:

And all put together. I probably have $250-300 in this drum, which is $200 less or so of what I'd have paid for it new, but it's exactly how I wanted it and the SOUND is great.