Kelly wrote:
Excellent! I know how excited you were about these. They sure are pretty.
Teardrops are a strange world to me. I look at a stack of them and I have no idea what sizes they are.
Thanks, Kel. I am far more pleased with these than I thought I'd be.
The before-sale photo was discouraging to me - it really looks quite awful. Having worked with these some, I can now see the possibilities that may be lurking beneath junk photographs, although I have to say that, when I saw the kit in the shop, I almost didn't buy it. Florescent shop lighting, piles of other derelict stuff nearby, a general air of fatigue, and 46 years of built up smut on the drums almost caused me to turn around and go home empty handed.
Am I ever glad I didn't. The more I work with this kit, but better I discover its condition. The bass drum probably had its reso removed from day one, but miraculously the bearing edge is in good shape. The floor tom, too, went reso-less, and its bearing edge is also fine. There is not fading on the shells worth mentioning. Rosewood is particularly susceptible to UV, so these drums must have lived in cases when they weren't being played.
Starting work, with fortification:
No fading on shells, not even under the lugs. Apparent color differentiation under lugs is a result of the lug protecting the lacquer finish from the elements, so it is a higher gloss, as originally finished, and the rosewood figure is less obscured by a scratched lens, as it were. The grey area in the veneer is interesting - never seen anything quite like it in rosewood. I understand that some of the coloration in Brazilian rosewood is a result of periodic forest fires that would char the outside but not kill the trees, leaving lines behind to tell the story.
Even the foam packing in the lugs is still serviceable - incredible to me since the foam had turned to powder in my other kit.
Hard to photograph chrome, but perhaps you can see the schmutz on the chrome where I have not cleaned it. Stuff that looks like scratches on the upper right? Just built up schmutz.
Nice detail change from my other kit: tapered stud endings. Not sure whether this was to facilitate threading or nut placement. As you can see, the threaded sections are cast into the lug, not threaded in.
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