ONE-DAY BASS DRUM REHAB

When I don't have new projects to work on, sometimes it is a good idea to go back and re-examine old ones.  This weekend I pulled out the old "LudSlinger Kit" and realized it could use a little love and attention.

The LudSlinger Kit was a drum set I put together a long time ago - so long that I don't even remember where I got these pieces.  It consisted of a Slingerland bass drum and snare teamed up with a Ludwig tom and floor tom.  For this reason I gave this mismatched kit the name "LudSlinger."

At the time I was more interested in collecting and playing drums than I was putting in the time and effort restoring them.  A restoration back then was simply a light dusting and some new heads.  So this weekend when I looked at the state of this 22-inch chrome-wrapped bass drum, I decided it was time for a thorough cleaning.  After all, this is a true vintage drum, not some cheap Japanese piece-of-junk.

Since this drum doesn't need any repairs and I don't need to round up any spare parts, you'd think that polishing it up a bit would be simple.  It's not.  Not the way I do it.

The first thing I do is take the drum apart.  I don't mean removing the drum heads, I mean completely disassembling the drum down to every little screw.  I remove the heads, the rims, the T-rods and claws, the lugs, the tom mount, the spurs and anything else that is detachable from the shell.  Then the polishing begins.

The wrap on the shell gets the polish first.  I use a professional-grade metal polish (on any kind of wrap, not just this chrome version) that lifts away the dirt and grime that builds up and makes any drum look hazy and dull.  This brings out the shine of this chrome wrap, and also makes sparkle wraps glitter like new again.  I also hit the inlay strips on the wooden hoops, as they tend to get quite filthy as well.

Next I polish the lugs which in this case was a very time-consuming task.  This 22-inch bass drum has twenty lugs, and that takes a lot of patience, determination and elbow grease to accomplish.  If you have arthritis like I do, it can also be taxing to your digits.

After this I polish all the T-rods and claws, and then the tom mount, the spur mounts and the spurs.  It's a long strenuous process, but I managed to finish it all in one day beginning at about 10 AM and stopping around 5 PM (with one hour for lunch, of course).  In the end it is worth it, because now my bass drum looks like this:

That's quite an improvement!!