The Stripper

This all stems from an article from an old MD mag by Mark LeFleur . He writes that he has an old Pearl Export 5 piece kit with black wrap he has had for 12 years which he likes the sound of and couldn't decide whether to sell it and upgrade or not. He decided to refinish it by stripping off the wrap and staining it. That gave me the idea to do the same to an old no name 4 piece kit that I mainly use for pit work. The royal blue wrap is buckling in several places and it is so ugly I would never put it where people could see it. Mark goes through a step by step process and it didn't sound to difficult to me. I never thought it would be in my capability to do this but he makes it sound pretty easy. I started with the rack tom an followed his instructions about removing the wrap. I followed his instructions except I used a heat gun instead of a hair dryer. Luckily there was only one strip of glue tape holding the wrap on. The only other thing I added was to remove the tape residue with Goof-Off.

Here is a pic of the matching floor tom because I forgot to photograph the rack tom



And here is the rack tom with the wrap off. It was surprisingly easy. I will post more pics as the project progresses.



If anyone wants the article it is the May 2008 issue.

I'm doing the same thing with my Island Kit. :-D

It's really quite easy. I'm not staining mine, but rather simply finishing them with teak oil inside and out. Poplar is a very pretty wood, in my opinion!