Great results! I've just been watching your finishing videos too, & you obviously know what you're doing. A huge amount of work, so kudos to you. Just curious, how many man hours do you think you put into the job from start to finish?
Thanks Keep it Simple. I've been lurking here for awhile. Enough to know you do stellar drum work too. Congrats on your work as well!
I wished I had logged the hours in detail but it was spread out over almost a year because I would buy a few parts and have to wait on making money to get more parts.
Started by building the snare to completion 1st as a test run. After that it was a single order for all the shells except one bass drum. When the shells arrived and I started looking at things it was then I realized the 14" tom was just way too deep to go over the bass. I had to cut an inch and a half off of it and recut the bearing edge on that one side. After figuring out it wasn't that hard to do I wished I had cut all my own edges.
Once that was fixed I started the finish process. Working on the finish after work every night for about 3 hours a night I'd say there was about 30 hours involved total for the finish. Maybe more. It's a lot of work.
Even after I made those videos and the finish looked great I knew it was going to shrink into the grain. So I just played the kit for about 9-10 months and you could start to see the wood grain showing up in the surface again just because the clear shrinks over time as it cures. I took the whole kit apart again and resanded the finish with 2000 and buffed them again to make them slick as glass, again. It was then I took these photos. They still look and sound great!
They cost more $$ than I was expecting, but I'll never need another kit.
A lot of people ask why there's a double pedal on the left. When I play somewhere and just need say a 1 up 2 down kit but still want the double bass chops, I just take one bass and the double pedal. Otherwise I just use the double as a single on the left. Cheaper than buying two singles AND a double.
Now I need to pick up a few stands so the 1 or 2 up with a single bass and no rack is a feasible option.
And thanks for recognizing my how to do a fade paint job tutorials. I knew all along how to do it but when I searched for the subject, nothing of great detail came up. I decided to film the process and make the videos to help other guys who want to try and do their own drum finish. It's just my little contribution to the drum community. If the videos help one guy reach his dream then it was all worth it to me.
If anyone is interested in the videos you can see them by going here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFDKugRnvss
Thanks again!