...AND EVEN MORE JAP PROJECTS

Despite the fact that these posts about the restoration of cheap Japanese drums are becoming monotonous (as if they were even remotely interesting from the start), these are the projects I have been working on lately and I would like to document them here.  I am not hindered in the least by your dismay and disapproval.

So here is yet another snare drum I acquired recently and set about to restore.  This one bears a badge labeled "Tempo" and has an odd yellow sparkle wrap.  In fact, I'm not sure what this particular color is called.  It can't be an extremely faded orange sparkle and doesn't seem to be a faded gold sparkle, yet it has no trace of green that would make it "ginger ale sparkle."  So I just call it yellow sparkle, though it's a very dull yellow.

The main issue with this drum is obvious.  It has a prominent orangy-red smudge right next to the badge, which gave me the thought that maybe it was once an orange or gold sparkle drum that had badly faded, but this is not the case.  The rest of the wrap is consistent in its unusual creamy-sparkly, dull yellow color.  This smudge was caused by something else.

And herein lay my dilemma with this drum.  Not knowing what caused the problem, I was at a loss as to how to fix it.  Was it a paint smudge transferred when it side-swiped another drum?  Is it a discoloration brought on by heat or sunlight?  The bottom line is, I couldn't get rid of it.  I tried numerous cleaners to no avail, even the stuff advertised on TV that claims it can remove scrapes and paint smudges off of automobiles.

Well, it don't work on drums.  But the rest of the snare cleaned up nicely and went back together with no further incident.  And the drum sounds good now.  Here are the "After" photos:

Here is another drum I won in an auction on Ebay: a blue sparkle Stewart 13" tom.  This drum was in excellent condition and I didn't even change the heads.  I didn't buy it to restore it.  I snagged this drum because it so perfectly matches my 16" Ideal tom discussed in an earlier post.  You can tell these drums were all made in the same factory and just labeled with different badges.

Now if I can only track down a blue sparkle bass drum, I have the makings for yet another kit, but finding a MIJ bass drum at a reasonable price that is restorable has thus far proved to be most difficult.  I'm still searching though.  That's all for this week.